The second script written by Cash and Epps based on their own original idea. This is a spec script that was sold to the highest bidder in 1978. I was in Beijing, China on as a cameraman on a documentary crew making a film about higher education in China. We got a pretty good price for the screenplay and I was half way across the world. It was very frustrating that I couldn’t celebrate with anyone. I couldn’t really tell the film crew since I kept my writing life completely secret to my film crew life. This was really the change. After DANGEROUSLY sold, Jim and I worked full time.

It was originally titled: THE N STREET JUDAH after a streetcar in San Francisco. I always loved the name the streetcar and thought there was some kind of movie to be made. There is a photo of me talking to Jim on a pay phone from San Francisco with the streetcar going past. If I find the negative, I will send you a copy.

We had a title, and an idea that there was gold hidden in the streetcar. It’s not a cable car; it’s a streetcar that is still running in San Francisco. I loved the name of the streetcar, it sounded like some Raymond Chandler novel, both Jim and I were taken with San Francisco as a location with all it’s romance and charm, and I knew I wanted the gold to be hidden in plan sight.

The way we started this screenplay is that Jim wrote some 20 pages or so on pure inspiration and then I read it and said, “What the hell is this about?” and he said, “I don’t have a clue.” I then tried to make sense out of the ideas that those first pages presented. It is doubtful those first pages survive. I will keep looking for them.

We kept working on the characters and the story. One story that Jim always liked to tell was that we were trying to find the character of Lucas and we came up with an image of him returning to his houseboat to find stacks of bills. Once we got the image of Lucas taking an arrow off the wall and lighting his bills on fire and sending them into the bay in one big flaming arrow, it was the spark that got the character off to a great start.

When we handed the screenplay to our agent, Sam Adams, he didn’t like the title and came up with the title, OLD GOLD. It made sense and that’s the way the script went out. Supposedly, during the bidding process, Warner Brothers sent the screenplay to Clint Eastwood by helicopter when he was hiking in some remote area. He had to read it and let them know immediately. He passed.

It was bought by Casablanca Records, by producer Peter Guber, and the title was changed to DANGEROUSLY. Casablanca was immediately bought by Polygram Pictures. It was at one time cast with Dudley Moore and was eight weeks away from production when it was cancelled. The screenplay was set up at 20th Century Fox and currently is held b Warner Brother’s studio where it lays in their vaults. I’m not entirely clear who owns the rights.

DANGEROUSLY was really a huge step forward in our work and our visibility as writers in Hollywood. It was much more original than IZZY AND MOE and we were brought to the attention of producer Joe Wizan who subsequently offered WHEREABOUTS more about that later.