“Bullets Over Broadway” quotes

Plot – David Shayne, a playwright with an overblown opinion of himself, asks Julian Marx to produce his most recent work. Marx's condition for the deal is that the cast must include Olive Neal, a vulgar, ignorant aspiring actress "friend" of gangster Nick Valenti. The gangster provides the money to make the show and with part of that money Marx engages Helen Sinclair, a star whose career is waning. Despite Olive's terrible acting skills, everything proceeds normally. However Cheech, the gangster's bodyguard as well as a genius playwright, realizes the faults in the play and strives to make the script more realistic, prompting first embarrassment and then amazement in Shayne. Helen Sinclair ends up manifesting very explicitly reciprocated admiration for the author, while Olive has fun with fellow actor Warner Purcell, who suffers from melancholy bulimia. Cheech warns Purcell to leave Olive alone. The gangster, who now sees the play as his own, does not tolerate the havoc that Olive does to it well and after the play's successful debut in the province and her replacement for illness, he realizes that the play is perfect without her and removes her from the cast by shooting her. Cheech stands up to an enraged Shayne, who for his part does not report him to the police. However, Cheech cannot keep up the story of a gang war to explain Olive's death to Valenti. For this reason the gangster has the bodyguard killed during another successful show. The dying Cheech tells Shayne a passionate new ending. Realising that writing plays is not for him and that Helen Sinclair's love is not real, David returns home to his long time girlfriend Ellen and abandons the difficult art of the playwright.