Lights! Camera! Tourism! Zelda Movie To Have Tourism Commercial Inside Film

Actress Grace McPhillips performs a demo scene from the
upcoming movie Beautiful Little Fools, a modern take on
the legendary Zelda Fitzgerald 

Excerpt From: Beautiful Little Fools screenplay by Carrie Stett

Movie Producer: Sterling Rock Productions, IL

Tourism Attraction: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum

Location: Montgomery, Alabama
Photos: Click to enlarge! Production photos courtesy of Sterling Rock Productions. Museum photos by Patrick Miller

Below is an exclusive excerpt from the screenplay Beautiful Little Fools, a modern take on Zelda Fitzgerald soon to be filmed in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. The movie centers on a present day woman, Zelda Stone, who begins to learn about her namesake Zelda Fitzgerald after moving to Montgomery with her husband. Zelda Fitzgerald also appears as a character in the film through many historical flashbacks. One of the places Zelda Stone starts with is the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, located in the only surviving home of the Fitzgerald family. Please learn more about this film in the Tourism Guide after the excerpt. Plus, isn't it interesting to see the format of a screenplay before watching it on film?

BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS

BY CARRIE STETT

Actress Grace McPhillips prepares to become Zelda Fitzgerald's modern
counterpart, Zelda Stone. Someone else will play Zelda Fitzgerald
in historical flashbacks throughout the movie. Who will play Zelda Fitzgerald? 

INT. FITZGERALD MUSEUM – PRESENT DAY

Zelda enters. It's a small apartment filled with artifacts

from Scott and Zelda Fitzgeralds' lives -- paintings,

letters, books, and original 1930's furniture, all old and

slightly dusty. Large individual portraits of Zelda and F.

Scott stare out from the mantle.

Zelda's portrait in the museum.

GEORGE, 55, the scattered museum keeper, greets Zelda

enthusiastically.

GEORGE

Welcome to the Museum.

ZELDA

Thanks.

Zelda surveys the room.

GEORGE

Scott and Zelda lived in this building in 1931 and 32. It

has since been made into separate apartments,

but this was their actual dining room.

Zelda admires a set of realistic hand-painted paper dolls on

the wall depicting Zelda, Scott and their daughter Scottie

in their undergarments, with changes of clothes next to

them.

Zelda's paper dolls on display in the museum.

GEORGE (CONT’D)

Zelda painted lots of paper dolls.

It was part of her therapy.

ZELDA

They're striking.

GEORGE

Artist, writer, ballerina... She had so much talent.

All she ever wanted was to make a name for herself.

And she did.

(beat)

I'm doing my dissertation on Scott and Zelda.

They had such fascinating lives.

(beat)

Sorry, I'm rambling. It's refreshing to have a visitor.

This photograph of Zelda was taken in the same
room where it is now on display in the museum.
She used this photograph for the cover of her
novel Save Me the Waltz.

ZELDA

You mean someone new?

GEORGE

No,just a visitor.

They exchange smiles.

ZELDA

We just moved in down the street.

GEORGE

I didn't catch your name. I'm George.

Co-producers Grace McPhillips and Bob Hudgins

ZELDA

Zelda Stone.

GEORGE

Really? Do people ever ask you –

Zelda nods.

ZELDA

Not until recently.

GEORGE

Well she's not such a bad person to be associated with.

She was a renaissance woman for sure.

George goes to a shelf of old books and pulls one out, blows

dust off of it. On the cover is a photograph of young Zelda

Fitzgerald and the title:

"ZELDA FITZGERALD: AMERICA'S FIRST FLAPPER."

GEORGE (CONT’D)

(gives her the book)

Here -- the best book ever written on Zelda. Take it.

And let me know when you're done. There's many more where

that came from.

ZELDA

Thanks. Goodness knows I've got plenty of time on my hands.

GEORGE

Maybe it'll inspire you.

Zelda seemed to have that effect on people.

ZELDA

Maybe it will.

BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS © 2011 by Sterling Rock Productions, LLC and WGA ®

919 Felder Films, LLC owns all property in regards to BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOLS,

and all material and characters in this screenplay are fictitious and in no way

portray real individuals, or, are drawn from historical public domain record.


Tourism Guide

F. Scott Fitzgerald's portrait in the museum.
Zelda's dolls are to the right of the lamp.

As a board member of the real museum in the scene above, you can imagine how excited I am to know that a movie will be filmed inside our museum. How is that going to impact tourism to our city? These days, tourism revenues are tough to come by for cash-strapped states and cities, and that has led to some creative ways to attract visitors.

If having a scene filmed inside a real tourism attraction isn't enough, there might be an even more stunning draw for tourism in this movie because Sterling Rock Productions, the movie’s producer, is considering incorporating a tourism commercial about the many real life attractions in the movie—a commercial to be shown inside the movie (probably at the end with the real actors and actresses directly inviting viewers to come visit the places).  Have you ever seen that in a movie? Wouldn’t it be fun to go visit the real places you just watched in a movie, and who better to invite you than the lead stars in the movie? The commercial would direct viewers to visit a special website where they could follow tourism links to all the places in the movie. The links would show photos, provide directions, and list ticket prices and other information, such as hours of operation.

Naturally, all of us at the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum are very excited about this, but once the movie comes out, isn’t it possible that many more movies in the near future set in different places will follow the same model? And how will that affect national tourism revenues and eventually the national economy, which is 70% driven by consumer spending? We are proud to be a part of this innovation in tourism marketing. No amount of generic tourism commercial formatting could compete with the artistic emotional appeal of a film, so this will open up a whole new level of connecting with the films and places for artistic moviegoers, much like the tourism novels featured on this wesbite. Of course, showing fans how to physically connect with their favorite movies is going to generate some much higher revenues for film producers and their investors as well. Follow the links below to learn more about the museum and the movie.

Tourism/Movie Links
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum
Sterling Rock Productions-Zelda link