Secret history of the Kleinhardt Gambit
In the second Charlie’s Angels, where did the phrase “Kleinhardt gambit” come from?
– Duane
Mount Pleasant
Duane is referring to this scene, near the end of the movie:
EXT. HIGH ROOF – NIGHT
Madison finds herself alone on a high, empty roof. Reeling, confused. A giant, blinking “LOS ANGELES� SIGN flashes.
A single telescope has been set up near the edge. Madison walks to it. Leans down to the eyepiece.
HER P.O.V.
On a distant rooftop, all of her gangster clients are being arrested by the F.B.I.
CLOSE ON MADISON
as she looks up from the eyepiece. Furious, but smiling. She speaks to the only ones who could be behind this:
MADISON
The Kleinhardt Gambit. Classic. Well done.
WIDEN TO REVEAL the Angels, approaching behind her.
NATALIE
Thanks.
SMASHCUT to a series of FAST FLASHBACKS:
MUSSO AND FRANK’S. SNAP ZOOM TO THE COAT CHECK ROOM. THE COAT CHECKER IS NATALIE, WITH BLACK HAIR AND SLINKY BLACK DRESS.
ROOSEVELT HOTEL, BATHROOM. THE HISPANIC DOORMAN QUICKLY RIPS OFF HIS LATEX FACE, REVEALING DYLAN.
(Those last three are separate scene numbers, by the way.)
Here, the “Kleinhardt Gambit” refers to the way the angels sent Madison’s buyers to the wrong rooftop through elaborate misdirection. The telescope is apparently not a key part of the gambit, but rather just to piss off Madison.
The action is pretty standard for Charlie’s Angels (or Mission: Impossible), so it makes sense that a fallen angel would recognize how she was duped, and would have a term for it. The term itself is completely invented, a ridiculous neologism. And believe me, there wasn’t a lot of deep thought going into it. The first combination of syllables that seemed reasonable got typed.
Science fiction does this constantly. What’s a flux capacitor? How did Kirk prevail in the un-winnable Kobayashi Maru? What are midi-chlorians, and how can we pretend we never heard of them?
Don’t be afraid to invent terms you think would exist in your fictional world. Done just right, jargon helps ground characters in their setting, much the way medical-ese makes you think those pretty people on TV could actually be doctors.
Filed under: Charlie's Angels, Projects, QandA, Words on the page
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May 2nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
As Clouseau would say…”ahhh, the old Kleinhardt Gambit routine… and I fell for it!”
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
John, A flux capacitor is just a glorified oscillation overthruster.
Sorry.. I couldn’t resist.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Is this the shooting script of the screenplay or your spec version? I ask because there are so many camera angles included: smash-cut, widen, close-up, her POV, etc…
Can we do this? This is allowed? I’ve been trying to cut mine way back and would love it if I didn’t have to.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
@carol:
Other than the addition of scene numbers, there’s no difference between a normal script and a shooting script. That’s a pervasive myth.
This scene has a lot of specific direction to clarify who sees what, but in general, the Angels scripts are pretty camera-heavy.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
The old Kleinhardt Gambit… that’s so money!
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
You embiggen that neologism with your cromulent invention.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Let’s not overlook the practicality of real-world applications. I was once virtually blocked from using the laundry room for a full day by a man using what my friends and I have come to call the “Chazinsky Lawn Chair Maneuver”.
Oddly enough, the man was also a screenwriter.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
“What’s a flux capacitor? How did Kirk prevail in the un-winnable Kobayashi Maru? What are midi-chlorians, and how can we pretend we never heard of them?”
While I can’t answer the other two (and midichlorians just make me cry) — my geek hat says that Kirk “passed” the no-win situation of the Kobayashi Maru by reprogramming the simulator so you could win. Granted, that doesn’t state exactly what he did, and technically isn’t truly beating it, but the explanation was in “Wrath of Khan”.
Now, how did he program it? I imagine it was up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. He then had thirty lives to do with what he wished.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:49 am
This is such an awesome string of comments. :)
I think if we could just HARNESS all this geek power, we’d probably have enough collectively to cross the Time Meridian.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@ blair
“select, start” ;)
May 4th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Blair, they explain that in the new JJ Star Trek. It involves Kirk and a Blue Girlfriend.
It’s a great script and a funny sequence.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am
By the way, John, may I ask why you choose to write the flashbacks in ALL-CAPS. I’m wondering if this is a stylistic choice or done for technical reasons.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:28 am
james — Dammit! I forgot select! That actually happened to me a lot back when I was playing it… whoops.
Kevin — Cool. I wondered if they’d touch on that.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:29 am
@Kevin:
The all-caps was to save space. Those aren’t really new scenes, but single shots from things we’d just seen, so keeping them as long sluglines made sense.
May 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Ah, I see. Thanks, John.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
The cosmis Roger Rabbit rip-off known as Jar Jar Binks was annoying, but at least he didn’t ruin the Star Wars mythos. It was those damned midi-chlorians!
May 5th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I’ve written some screenplays in the past and am now working on a (non sci-fi) novel. I’ve been tempted at several points to make up words just because they seemed right. Case in point, the word “ribbled”. This is not a word. But I wrote a scene where an old guy sits reading a novel and his hair is all askew, only I didn’t want to use the word “askew”. For some reason “ribbled” popped into my mind. Do you ever make up words in the expository/scene description parts of your screenplays?
http://spinachflame.wordpress.com/
May 5th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hey Madrugada, big Steve King does it all the time! Case in point, check out Lisey’s Story for some REAL voyages down the byways of the language. Can’t wait to the screen adaptation of that one… “smucking bool!!!”