"Hutson"
A Feature Film Proposal
From an eyewitness account with
evidence found buried deep in the American, British, Russian, and Vatican archives.
OPEN
FADE IN:
OPENING TITLE GHOSTED IN GREY, SOFT LETTERS: “From a true story.”
CUT TO:
01. INT. IPATIEV HOUSE – EARLY COLD SUMMER MORNING, 100 YEARS AGO 01.
MOVIE TITLE ghosts on to the screen with simply a few words and no music: “100 Years Ago, Yekaterinburg.”
A soldier with a revolver in hand raised at his target is standing with 10 other soldiers in the cramped doorway. The room is approximately 25-by-21 feet. We hear soft, urgent praying in the background as the camera focuses on the soldier’s eyes darting back and forth in horror. Pleading from a woman’s voice can be heard over the background praying. It is the TSARINA ALEXANDRIA.
TSAR NICHOLAS II, dressed in casual field clothing with no hat stands next to his family and three friends, including the TSARINA, his hemophiliac-plagued son, ALEXEI, who is now seated in a chair like his mother, and four beautiful daughters dressed in white linen clutching their upper bodies.
ASSASSIN LEADER YAKOV YUROVSKY, in Russian
Ready. . . , aim . . .,
TSARINA ALEXANDRA, in pleading Russian
Nicholai!!!
TSAR NICHOLAS II, in English
Lord, oh, my God! Oh, my God! What is this?
YUROVSKY, in Russian
Fire!
Soldiers begin brutally firing at the Romanov family. Massive amounts of blood and tissue hit the walls in the basement as bodies crumble and ricocheting bullets pierce the quiet. Pings are heard as bullets hit jewels laced into the daughters’ garments.
A bullet hits the TSAR in the head and he falls violently to the floor. Toxic smoke and dense wall plaster dust fills the room as moaning and screaming is heard above the gunshots.
SOLDIER PAUL MEDVEDEV, in Russian
My God, my god!
A tear is running down the SOLDIER’S face.
Others soldiers in the room are yelling as the Romanov family and friends die and the gunshots, too numerous to count, end.
ROMANOV DAUGHTER ANASTASIA, in English
Help me! Papa?
YUROVSKY walks up to the ROMANOV DAUGHTER, points his gun at her head, and fires without expression.
YUROVSKY, in Russian
For Mother Russia!
The TSARINA lies holding her abdomen, jewels and blood cascading out. Her eyes panning the room in desperation for someone to save them. A glance over to her youngest daughter ANASTASIA, who lies motionless on the floor.
The room is grizzly to see. The smoke from the gunfire creating a haze in which the bodies of the TSAR, his family, and friends are heaped upon one another, soldiers using their bayonets stabbing the victims and their many lifeless bodies with shocking brutality and indifference.
CUT TO:
02. INT. IMPERIAL TRAIN– TSAR’S PERSONAL CARRIAGE, NOVEMBER 1919 02.
TITLE MUSIC comes up replacing the harsh murder scene, which just played out without music in the background.
TITLE: Somewhere between Irkutsk & Harbin, November 1919
TSAR NICHOLAS II sits in comfort, dressed in casual but yet formal looking clothing, no military experience evident, looking out the window at the Siberian countryside, with lots of snow on the ground, racing past as his train moves eastward over inspiring snow-draped terrain.
A wooden box, resembling a coffin rests in the middle of the TSAR’s rail carriage, soft lighting making the room warm, inviting and strangely peaceful.
Soft music fills the background, contrasting the last violent scenes just witnessed in the opening.
MAJOR DOMO, in English
Your Majesty? May I get you a drink?
TSAR NICHOLAS II
Yes, please, my dear Parfen.
MAJOR DOMO
Lieutenant HUMPHRIES and Private HUTSON will be here in a few minutes.
Do you have anything special that you would like to request?
TSAR NICHOLAS II
I will want to get a newspaper from the next town we stop in.
Please make certain that Private HUTSON will have time to do so.
I want to see if there is any news of my children. Have they been sighted?
Any rumors that might be true?
MAJOR DOMO
Yes, your Majesty. I will instruct the engineer right away.
CUT TO:
03. INT. PRIVATE RESIDENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE – WASHINGTON 03.
THANKSGIVING 1919, WASHINGTON, DC
PRESIDENT WILSON is sitting in the private residence hallway at the White House with sounds of Thanksgiving season in the background. His de facto CHIEF OF STAFF, Colonel William HOUSE, is leaning against a wall, arms folded, with a frown on his wrinkled forehead. Outside the large oval window on the 2nd floor, are bare tree branches and overcast skies. The President has suffered a series of debilitating strokes that have left him partially paralyzed.
COLONEL HOUSE
MR. PRESIDENT, GENERAL GRAVES reports that the TSAR and his family are on their way to Harbin.
Much can still go wrong, obviously, but we are hopeful for now.
PRESIDENT WILSON
Understood. Tell Secretary BAKER that MRS WILSON has been asking if KING GEORGE will be welcoming FAMILY TIMES SEVEN in time for a Christmas celebration?
We had such an extraordinary meeting with his MAJESTY.
Hard to believe it has been almost a year ago. What a year, don’t you think my dear COLONEL?
COLONEL HOUSE
I think it is premature to confirm with the KING, MR. PRESIDENT, but clearly we should begin making plans in the event that 28 is completely successful.
Should I inform the SECRETARY OF STATE that he should start making plans for a quiet state visit when TSAR NICHOLAS is ready to come back to the states?
PRESIDENT WILSON
By all means. But let’s make certain that it is a quiet visit.
I do not want CONGRESS all worked up at this point. If we can keep this mission secret a little longer, all the better.
GEORGE has managed to keep Parliament in the dark. There are already too many questions to answer with this mission.
CUT TO:
04. INT. IMPERIAL TRAIN– TSAR’S PERSONAL CARRIAGE 04.
A muffled knock at the door.
NICHOLAS
Yes? Enter.
Private First Class Martin V. HUTSON opens the door to the TSAR’S personal train carriage and enters the room with profound respect on his face and a smile. The car looks like a relic of the now-passed Tsarist era of Russian history. The crest of the royal family prominently displayed on the opposite wall.
The TSAR returns the favor of a smile.
HUTSON, age 18
Good afternoon, NICHOLAS. I have your newspaper.
Took some quick talking to get it done, but we did, Sir.
NICHOLAS
Well done, MARTIN. I have much to read to you so that you can repeat it in your wonderful southern accent. Let’s get started.
The Chinese border looms and we have only a short time remaining together, I am afraid.
HUTSON, age 18
Understood, Sir. I am ready.
You are going to speak some of the best Southern anybody ever heard, NICHOLAS. I promise!
NICHOLAS
With a concerned look on his face, NICHOLAS turns to HUTSON
It’s rather ironic, wouldn’t you say, Martin?
HUTSON, age 18
What’s ironic, Sir?
NICHOLAS
I had to die so that we could live and now I am learning how to speak with a Southern dialect.
NICHOLAS speaking in a very distinctly educated British accent emphasizes what his future might soon entail:
Bloody brilliant, do you think, dear chap?
Then, NICHOLAS speaking in a very distinct southern dialect now to show his mastery of the dialects with HUTSON smiling broadly at the former monarch:
What will exile be like, do you think? Will I like Tennessee?
CUT TO:
05. INT. IPATIEV HOUSE – FOLLOWING THE ASSASSINATION 05.
Chaos is everywhere in the tiny cramped room in the basement of the Ipatiev House. Anxiety reigns among the guards who have just shot their former TSAR in cold blood, not to mention his innocent children.
There is considerable coughing amongst the soldiers because of the heavy smoke.
YUROVSKY, in Russian
Get these bodies out of here! Now! I want them loaded on the wagon at once. Someone will be coming to investigate all of the shooting. PETER, I want this room cleaned. There is to be no obvious sign of this murder.
The SOLDIER reaches down to the young Duchess and begins to pull her toward the door. A number of jewels fall out of her dress.
SOLDIER PAUL MEDVEDEV
Dear God!
The SOLDIER quickly picks them up. ANOTHER SOLDIER sees them and looks around the room very nervously.
ANOTHER SOLDIER ALEXEI KABANOV
Give those to me, Comrade. I will give them to the Comrade YURKOVSKY.
No wonder the Grand Duchess did not die when I shot her.
SOLDIER PAUL MEDVEDEV
The SOLDIER looks at ANOTHER SOLDIER pleadingly.
I feared that God was protecting them, ALEXEI.
What have we done?
Why would Lenin want them dead in this fashion?
And the girls ... my God, I cannot believe this!
Soldiers are picking up bodies and wildly mopping up blood, which is everywhere you look. Pieces of wall plastering are falling off from where bullets hit having passed through the bodies of the royal family.
CUT TO:
06. INT. EVACUATION TRAIN #28 – SOMEWHERE IN SIBERIA, NOVEMBER, 1919 06.
TSARINA ALEXANDRA is lost in thought as her MAID is talking to her about the children having escaped with the DOWAGER EMPRESS through Eastern Europe. Laughing, fun scenes of the CHILDREN playing in the snow in TSARKOE SELO are on her mind.
Then she is dancing at an Imperial Ball with NICHOLAS, in St. Petersburg at the Imperial Palace, its opulence over TSARKOE SELO evident in the scenery.
The TSARINA is smiling at the TSAR as the dance at St. Petersburg in regal clothing that is far more extravagant than what they are wearing at the more informal Summer Palace.
Flash back to detailed scenes of TSARKOE SELO with crowds of people enjoying themselves, carefree and members of the Imperial family mill about, a warm summer breeze enveloping all of the party goers.
ALEXANDRA
Saying softly to herself back onboard Evacuation Train #28 as the frozen, snow-encrusted Siberian tundra whips by in the windows:
Are those days now gone? Have we lost them forever, NICKY?
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07. EXT. IMPATIEV HOUSE – YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA, JULY 17, 1918 07.
A few of the bodies are unceremoniously thrown on top of one another outside the Ipatiev House. Dawn is breaking over the trees. Blood drips the crack of the wagon floorboard and splashes the dirt on the ground.
YUROVSKY
Throw them in!
The Romanov remains are removed from the truck by a number of soldiers. Behind them, you see bodies being chopped by broad axes as other soldiers pour liquids over the deep grave.
UNNAMED SOLDIER
What if they are found YUROVSKY?
Peering into the grave, he replies:
YUROVSKY
They won’t be found. They are dead to Russia and dead to history, too.
Nobody will be looking for these asses.
Looking at the UNNAMED SOLDIER, he says:
The Romanovs will never be found. We have made certain of it.
The camera pans back to the Ipatiev House murder room and the evidence of the carnage from hours before. Plaster lies on the floor, large holes in the wall, as we have seen in now all-too-familiar historical pictures, except for now, blood of the murder is still everywhere.
SMASH CUT TO:
MAIN TITLES
END OF OPEN TEASER
full draft of the film script is available for review. Please contact ben everidge through the email link below for additional material and information. Thank you for your consideration!
About The Adapted Screenplay by Ben Everidge
More than one hundred years ago, the world first learned that Nicholas Romanov II and his charming family was brutally murdered in Yekaterinburg, Russia, at the famed Ipatiev House by Bolshevik Revolutionary soldiers loyal to Vladimir Lenin.
The Romanov bodies were finally found many decades later under highly controversial circumstances. DNA evidence was purported to confirm their identities. Rumors of their survival persisted, however.
Now comes a recorded story from an eyewitness, a young soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces Siberia, who tells a much different account than history now tells.
That soldier details a Romanov rescue mission, authorized by an American President and a cousin King of England, evidence of which has been found buried deep in the American, British, Russian, and Vatican archives.
According to that eyewitness, Army Private First Class Martin Van Buren Hutson, Nicholas lived.
This is his story as told by his family 100 years after history told the world the Imperial family had perished in the closing days of World War I. One hundred years after history needed them dead.