Build a movie plot around this: Who gets fatally wounded on a dangerous mission? Christian
A:
In a Paris theater in 1640, a play begins before a fairly full house. After a few painfully dull lines are delivered by principal actor Montfleury (Arthur Blake), a boisterous heckler in a box disrupts the proceedings. The heckler is Cyrano de Bergerac (Jose Ferrer), poet and supreme swordsman, who says he cannot endure the actor's bombastic style. He gives Montfleury a slow count of three to disappear before coming at him, and the actor runs away. Eventually Cyrano confronts the playwright and theater manager, insisting that the play be closed. When the manager complains that he can't afford to refund money to the audience, Cyrano throws him a bag of gold coins.Watching from another box in the theater are Cyrano's distant cousin, the beautiful Roxane (Mala Powers), with her attendant (Virginia Farmer); the Comte de Guiche (Ralph Clanton), who is Roxane's suitor; and the Vicomte de Valvert (Albert Cavens), an arrogant aristocrat who is so annoyed he insults Cyrano with snide but cliched comments about his enormous nose. This can only lead to a duel.Cyrano first mocks the vicomte's lack of wit, improvising numerous inventive ways in which Valvert might have phrased references to the giant nose, much to the amusement of the audience. Cyrano then announces he will compose a poem and recite it during the duel, which he does -- thus showing off simultaneously his skills as poet and swordsman. With the last line, he stabs his opponent, and the audience leaves.Cyrano's friend Le Bret (Morris Carnovsky), captain of the Gascony guards, warns him he has made powerful enemies, but Cyrano is unconcerned.When Le Bret presses him as to why he hates Montfleury, Cyrano admits that he became jealous when he saw the actor making advances towards Roxane. He confesses that he is in love with her, but harbors no hope of being loved in return because of his deformity, his huge nose. Le Bret suggests they go out to eat, but Cyrano says he has no money left, as all he had was in the bag he threw at the theater manager -- a costly...