WGA Registered

 

Between Heaven and Hell

 

an original screenplay

by Charles Deemer

 

 

Logline:  A shy English professor is given a night with a young call girl for his 50th birthday.  His subsequent obsession with her leads him into a new and strange world of murder and blackmail, where he must learn new skills to survive.

 

Synopsis:  Bertrand Hodgeworth is a shy, even dull, English professor whose specialty is William Blake.  He teaches his classes and looks forward to a sabbatical in London, where he plans to work on a new book.

            Then a rich foreign student gives him an unusual 50th birthday present:  a night with Nicole, a young and bright call girl.  She awakens in the professor a sensuality that he hasn’t experienced in years, and he becomes obsessed with seeing her again.  He becomes one of her regular clients.

            His obsession grows to the extent that he cancels his trip to London in order to be able to see her.  Then he learns that the same student who bought him the birthday night with her is also obsessed - with Nicole’s roommate, Maureen.  Nicole asks the professor to talk to the student about leaving Maureen alone.

            But when Bertrand visits the student, he finds his dead body on the floor.  Not knowing what else to do, he flees, later reporting the body anonymously from a phone booth.

            Bertrand, being a teacher of the victim, is questioned, but the police don’t seem to know if it was murder or suicide.  Then Bertrand finds a key taped into the inside of a term paper that the student turned in.  Not knowing what else to do, he takes the key to Nicole and Maureen.

            Behind Bertrand’s back, developments have been happening.  One of  Maureen’s clients is a plant, working for the police:  Nicole and Maureen have been picking up wealthy executives and blackmailing them with photos.  The student who was killed, in fact, was working as their photographer.  The key is to a locker where the money has been stored, and the student had stolen it in fear that he was being squeezed out of the scam.

            But Bertrand knows none of this, and when Nicole suggests a vacation together, which in fact is a plan to help the women skip the country , he goes along.  Only when he stumbles across an athletic bag of money  does he begin to put two and two together.

            Nicole and Maureen are on a plane to Europe before they realize what has happened: the shy, dull English professor has beat them at their own game.

            And Bertrand is relishing in his new sensuality - and new wealth - with a lovely, former student at a resort.