Question: Build a movie plot around this: Whose death does Sheila deny any role in? Johnny's
Answer:
Two professional hit men, Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager), enter a school for the blind and terrorize the principal until she reveals the whereabouts of a teacher, Johnny North (John Cassavetes). As the hitmen walk toward North's upstairs classroom, the teacher receives a phone call from the blind principal's aide, warning him of their arrival. However, a saddened Johnny responds, "It's okay. I know them." He calmly waits at his desk as Charlie and Lee enter the classroom and shoot him to death in a fusilade of bullets.As they depart town by train, Charlie admits that he is bothered that North refused to flee, aware that he was warned prior to their arrival. Lee also notes that from the look on Johnny's face when they entered the classroom is that he wanted them to kill him. It is revealed here that both Charlie and Lee were annoymously sub-contracted by an unseen party to kill Johnny North. It is apparent that the hitmen's business is not to make any direct contact with their paying clients, or know their names, just the name of their hit. Charlie and Lee run through a file they were given of what they knew about the man they have just killed. Johnny was once a champion race car driver whose career ended in a violent crash. Four years before his death, he was involved in a one million dollar mail truck robbery. Tempted by the thought of a $1 million payday, Charlie and Lee travel to Miami in order to interview Johnny's former mechanic, Earl Sylvester (Claude Atkins).Earl, who considers himself Johnny's only friend, is devastated to learn of his death. In between sobs and gulps of whiskey, he tells the story to Charlie and Lee as he remembers it:Four years earlier. Johnny North was at the top of his profession when he met the beautiful Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) who asked him out to dinner. Despite Earl's suspicions, Johnny fell deeply in love and planned to propose marriage after winning his next big race. However, Johnny's late night days with Sheila had left him disoriented from lack of...