by Rocky Wood
Mr. Bortman revealed Josh had been concerned that people might discover the reason he was not with the Squad on the fateful day, but of course the story got out. “Joshua didn’t have many friends when he was growing up, Mr. Clewson. I don’t think he had any real friends until he got to Nam. He loved your son, and the others.”
Now Bortman, strangely enough, is comforting Clewson. “‘Is he smiling, Mr. Clewson. The others … they said he was smiling.’ Dale looked toward the picture beside the ticking clock. ‘He’s smiling.’ ‘Of course he is. Josh finally caught up with them.’”
Squad D is a very powerful and compelling story, ones of those the reader’s mind comes back to over the days after reading and it deserves to be published. The opening sentences are one case in point: “Billy Clewson died all at once, with nine of the ten other members of D Squad on April 8, 1974. It took his mother two years, but she got started right away on the afternoon the telegram came announcing her son’s death, in fact.”
Considering the uniqueness and power of the story idea it is a little surprising King has not reworked and published it at some point since it was written in the late 1970s. Ellison’s criticism that the work “deserves better” may well be valid but King is famed for working at certain stories, when he wants to, until he gets them to a satisfactory state.
Squad D has a Riding the Bullet or The Road Virus Heads North tone, making it closer in style to King’s writings of the 1970s and 1980s, which in fact it is, than the late 1990s and the early part of this century. This has not stopped King from publishing these types of stories as the mood takes him and we can only hope he might return to this story, which has the makings of a classic, at some point.
The Stand Screenplays (Undated, 1992)
“Be strong in the strength of the Lord … and stand. Stand like the men you are.”
Abagail Freemantle to Stu Redman, Ralph Brentner and Larry Underwood as she sent them West to confront Randall Flagg. From the unproduced screenplay of The Stand.
King has effectively created five versions of his seminal work, The Stand. This will surprise most readers, who would immediately identify two or three versions but would struggle to identify the remainder.
Regarded by many as King’s masterpiece, The Stand was first published in 1978. Subsequent paperback editions used the original hardcover text for a period. The timeline of the events in this first version is 1980.
US paperback editions moved to a new timeline of 1985. The Signet edition of January 1980 was the first of these editions. King’s Author’s Note concludes “minor revisions have been made for the Signet edition of this novel.” Books carrying this timeline form the second version. Most, if not all, overseas paperback editions stayed with the 1980 timeline.
In 1990 King famously republished the book as he had originally intended, in a Complete and Uncut edition. In the second part of the preface to that third version of this tale King stated, “… I am republishing ‘The Stand’ as it was originally written…,” although he also comments that certain parts originally cut stayed on the cutting room floor. That first version, as noted, was published in 1978. However, Freddy Krueger is referred to at the end of the “Uncut” Chapter 11. The first Nightmare on the Elm Street movie was produced in 1984. There is also a reference (without naming her) to Bobbi Anderson, a character who appeared first in The Tommyknockers in 1987. In both those cases we can see that more was added to the manuscript, rather than a simple restoration. There are dozens of examples of this “updating.” In fact, indications are that some 150,000 words were added, whereas it appears 100,000 had originally been removed. King clarified this matter in his Foreword to the Revised and Expanded Edition of The Gunslinger: “What I reinstated in the late eighties were revised sections of the pre-existing manuscript. I also revised the work as a whole, mostly to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic ….” Therefore, the true Uncut version (or Original Uncut, if you will) has never been published.
King also wrote a movie script of The Stand, set in 1985, which has never been produced and is discussed in this Chapter. This forms the fourth version. Finally, in 1992, King wrote the screenplay for the ABC mini-series and that forms the fifth and, to date, final version! All versions, of course, are part of The Stand Reality.
As readers and viewers we are fortunate that The Stand ever saw the light of day. In section 10 of the “On Writing” section of On Writing King tells us that he suffered writer’s block on the direction of the story after five hundred or so pages and was nearly incapable of completing it. In fact, it was the only book length work from that time until On Writing itself to suffer being laid away in a drawer, perhaps never to be completed. King’s explosive solution to the problem is detailed in section 10. He also declares, of the fan base’s high opinion of The Stand, that “… there’s something a little depressing about such a united opinion that you did your best work twenty years ago, but we won’t go into that just now, thanks.”
Unproduced Movie Screenplay
King wrote this screenplay for a movie length production. It has never published. A copy is held in Box 2318A at the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, Orono and readers can access it there. This summary is compiled from the 4th Draft.
Considering the varying timelines for the different versions of The Stand it is interesting that King chose to set this particular script in 1985 (the superflu outbreak begins in Arnette on 16 June 1985 and the nuclear explosion in Las Vegas occurs on 5 November 1985). This may indicate that the version of the script held at UMO was written about 1984, considering King’s penchant for setting storylines one or two years in the future. Various sources note that King began writing scripts for a movie version of The Stand as early as 1979.
King was very true to the storyline in the 1978 book version in this screenplay and readers will recognize this from the summary. However, there are a number of changes from the book, which are reviewed later.
In this script a superflu virus is released from a government facility and devastates the world, leading to an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil. The virus escaped into the general populace when Campion and his family ran from the Project Blue Base in California shortly after an accident infected everyone there. A few days later Campion crashed into a gas station in Arnette, Texas where Stu Redman and his cronies were drinking and shooting the breeze.
The flu, quickly dubbed Captain Trips, had 99.4% communicability and 99.4% excess mortality and quickly engulfed the world. Within two weeks America lay devastated, with the few survivors in shock. As they slowly began to regroup most suffered vivid dreams of an old black woman or of a Dark Man.
Soon, almost everyone chose to take one side or the other in what appeared to be an upcoming clash between good and evil. A small group, led by deaf-mute Nick Andros, including Ralph Brentner and the intellectually handicapped Tom Cullen made it to the old woman’s homestead in the cornfields of Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Abagail Freemantle, who quickly became known as Mother Abagail, made it clear that God had set her to the hard task of facing the enemy. She and her followers then moved to Boulder, Colorado and the apparent task of rebuilding civilized society.
They were joined in the Boulder Free Zone, as it had been dubbed, by Redman, who had narrowly escaped execution by the authorities after failing to contract the disease; and his new lover, Fran Goldsmith. Traveling with them was Harold Lauder, who had turned vengeful after his romantic designs toward Fran had gone unrequited. Also joining the Zone were Larry Underwood, a singer who was just enjoying the success of his first hit record when the superflu hit and Nadine Cross, a woman who was more attracted to the dark forces than she was willing to admit.
Meanwhile, the Dark Man, Randall Flagg, had discovered he could do magic and began forming an empire based in Las Vegas. He recruited a petty criminal, Lloyd Henreid as his right-hand man and began gathering the military might to smash his opponents. They were joined by a demented pyroma
niac with a gift for weaponry, who was known only as the Trashcan Man.
The Zone sent spies west, one of them a hypnotized Cullen. Another, Judge Farris, was intercepted and killed but Flagg was unable to locate Cullen, even after he arrived in Las Vegas.
Lauder and Cross, now determined to cross over to Flagg, bombed the Free Zone Committee, killing Andros and a number of others. The killers escaped and headed toward Flagg but he arranged for Lauder to crash his motorcycle, breaking his leg. Cross went on and met Flagg in the desert, having sex with him and falling both pregnant and catatonic. Realizing his situation could not be redeemed Lauder committed suicide.
Freemantle ordered Underwood, Brentner and Redman to leave and walk to Las Vegas. Then, she died. Despite their misgivings and those of Goldsmith, the three men set off that afternoon with a dog, Kojak. As they walked the highway Redman fell and broke his leg at a washout and the others reluctantly left him to his fate. Kojak chose to stay with Redman and brought him small animals to cook and eat.
In Las Vegas there were signs that Flagg’s iron-rule was cracking, including Cross killing herself. Cullen headed back east as instructed by his hypnotic suggestion.
Underwood and Brentner were captured as they approached Las Vegas and jailed. The next morning Flagg called all his supporters into the city to witness the proposed execution of the prisoners. As the execution proceeded toward its climax the Trashcan Man arrived with a nuclear weapon as homage to Flagg; and one of Flagg’s supporters called for the crowd to stand up against him. Flagg attacked this last man with a blue ball of fire but it rapidly grew and formed into the shape of a hand before setting off the nuclear weapon, destroying his empire and dreams. Just before the explosion Flagg disappeared.
Back at the washout Cullen found Redman and took him to a nearby town to recuperate. Along with Kojak they made their way back to Boulder, arriving just after Goldsmith gave birth to her son, Peter Goldsmith-Redman. By 1989 Redman, Goldsmith and the boy were living in Maine.
King made a number of changes from the first book version in this script. In this version Kojak is Judge Glen Farris’ dog. In the books, the Judge’s name is Richard Farris. The reason for this first name change is King’s elimination of the delightful character, Glen Bateman from this version. It is perhaps lucky it was not produced, as this character deletion would have been very unpopular with fans of The Stand!
In another interesting change from the books King does not give “The Trashcan Man” a name. Of course, in the books his real name is Donald Merwin Elbert. Joe-Bob, the Texas Highway Patrolman who died of the superflu early in the piece, does not have a surname in this version. In the book his surname is Brentwood. In another change, Peter Goldsmith-Redman’s natural father was an instructor at his mother’s graduate school, while in the books the father was a fellow student, Jess Rider. The character known only as “Poke” in this version is Andrew “Poke” Freeman, Henreid’s erstwhile partner in crime in the books.
The facility in which Redman was held by the authorities examining him changes from being the Stovington Plague Control Center in the books to the Stovington Experimental Center in this script.
All versions of The Stand link to other King fiction (see the feature panel).
Mini-Series Screenplay
This section was compiled from the Second Draft Screenplay, dated 16 October 1992. That screenplay has not been published and there would appear to be little point considering not only the two book versions of this classic tale but also the fact that readers/viewers may watch the mini-series produced from the script on TV or on DVD. Readers should note that copies of this screenplay do circulate within the King community but are very difficult to secure.
The screenplay was produced and shown as an ABC-TV mini-series in the United States as Stephen King’s The Stand.
There was at least one questionable casting decision, with most fans of The Stand decrying the atrocious choice of Molly Ringwald as Fran Goldsmith. Indeed, her portrayal was as far from the strong young woman described in King’s books as seems possible. The mini-series debuted on ABC-TV on the nights of 8, 9, 11 and 12 May 1994. The four parts were sub-titled The Plague, The Dreams, The Betrayal and The Stand. IMDB members give the production a very solid 7.2 rating out of a possible 10. The director was Mick Garris, who also helmed Sleepwalkers, the mini-series of The Shining, Quicksilver Highway, Riding the Bullet and Desperation. King was credited as co-Executive Producer. The production won an Emmy, for Best Achievement in Make-Up.
The actors included Gary Sinise as Stu Redman; Molly Ringwald as Fran Goldsmith; Jamey Sheridan as Randall Flagg; Laura San Giacomo as Nadine Cross; Ruby Dee as Abagail Freemantle; Miguel Ferrer as Lloyd Henreid; Ray Walston as Glen Bateman; Rob Lowe as Nick Andros; Kathy Bates as Rae Flowers; Ed Harris as Starkey; and Cynthia Garris (the wife of the director) as Susan Stern.
Stephen King played the role of Teddy Weizak. It is interesting to note that this character lived the whole way through this version, whereas he died as a result of the Lauder/Cross bombing of the Free Zone Committee in both the books and the unproduced screenplay. It seems the power of the author to give life or death can come into stark focus when that same author is given the role of acting out the character’s existence!
Bates, Harris and King appeared in cameo roles. In his Creepshows Stephen Jones says director Garris has a “predilection for guest appearances.” Others to appear were King’s favorite drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs; basketballer Kareem Adbul-Jabbar as the Monster Shouter; and directors Tom Holland (Carl Hough), John Landis (Russ Dorr) and Sam Raimi (Bob Terry), as well as Garris himself. The Russ Dorr character played by Landis appears to be King’s nod to Russell Dorr (P.A.) of the Bridgton Family Medical Center, one of two clinicians King credits in the Author’s Note to The Stand with answering his questions about the flu and “…its peculiar way of mutating every two years or so.” King also credits Dorr in Pet Sematary and Misery.
Readers will have noted that this cast has an outstanding resume in other film and television work and it is therefore no surprise that the overall acting in this mini-series is some of the best seen in a television adaptation of a King work. With a cast this fine and a screenplay by King of one of his most outstanding tales it is no surprise the resulting production is so highly regarded.
Gary Sinise was Oscar nominated for Forrest Gump and won an Emmy for George Wallace, a Golden Globe for Truman and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Apollo 13. Laura San Giacomo appeared in the long-running Just Shoot Me as well as in the ground-breaking Sex, Lies and Videotape; Ruby Dee is an Emmy Award winning actress; Miguel Ferrer also appeared in Night Flier and the cult series Twin Peaks; Ray Walston was loved by the audiences of My Favorite Martian and Picket Fences, for which he won two Emmys; the controversial Rob Lowe has also won two Emmys, for The West Wing; Kathy Bates won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes in Misery and took the title role in Dolores Claiborne; and Golden Globe winner Ed Harris won the Best Actor Award from the Screen Actors Guild for Apollo 13 and has already garnered four Academy Award nominations.
The mini-series was issued on DVD in 1999, with audio commentary by King and selected actors; and includes a “making of” featurette. It was also boxed with other titles as the Stephen King Horror DVD Collection that same year.
We are not given a year in which the mini-series is set but it must be no earlier than 1990 as the schematic used by Harold Lauder to create his bomb won 3rd prize in the 1990 National Science Fair. In this version the superflu outbreak begins in Arnette on 17 June and the nuclear explosion in Las Vegas occurs at the relatively early date of 21 September 1985.
King was also very true in this screenplay to the storyline in the book versions. As the story is substantially the same as the unproduced screenplay, so there is no need to summarize it again. However, there are a number of changes from the books.
In one interesting change King again does not give “The Trashcan
Man” a real name. He also changes the sex of Fran Goldsmith’s baby from a boy, Peter, in each of the earlier versions, to the very sentimental choice of a girl named Abagail in this offering. In the books the child’s father is Jess Rider but in this version we do not learn Jess’ surname. There is no mention of Goldsmith and Redman returning to Maine with their child.
The character known only as “Poke” in this version is Andrew “Poke” Freeman. The man who took the superflu to the world, Charles Campion, is an Army officer in this script but was only a “government employee” in the books.
To allow for Kathy Bates’ appearance as the DJ murdered by the Army at KLFT during the epidemic, the final screenplay included a sex change for the character and a change of the name from Ray Flowers to Rae Flowers.
The facility in which Redman was held for examination and from which he escaped execution changes from being the Stovington Plague Control Center in the books to the Vermont Disease Center in this script.
In addition to the standard links from The Stand to other King fiction (see the feature panel) King took the opportunity in this script to make a few other subtle references. In the screenplay Tom Cullen was sent west from the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. This is, of course, the hotel at which King conceived The Shining and at which the mini-series of The Shining was filmed. While in Mother Abagail Freemantle’s cornfield, Randall Flagg is described as being “dim.” This is a skill Raymond Fiegler (most serious King students believe this is but a pseudonym for Randall Flagg) taught Carol Gerber in the Hearts in Atlantis version of Blind Willie.
