The
Blonde Bombshell
The Blonde Bombshell is the story of Smyrna Durmus, a struggling Turkish actress from Izmir living in London. She is obsessed with a blonde British actress to the point that she will try to kill her, believing that she is responsible for her own struggle. Being a dark Turkish girl, how can she ever hope to make it in a world where only fake blondes without an accent succeed? She will become a stalker, saying bitter things about it all, until she decides to kill Erika Precious in order to get fame out of it.
The Blonde Bombshell is the story of Smyrna Durmus, a struggling Turkish actress from Izmir living in London. She is obsessed with a blonde British actress to the point that she will try to kill her, believing that she is responsible for her own struggle. Of course she is the antimony of the title. Being a dark Turkish girl, how can she ever hope to make it in a world where only fake blondes succeed, especially the ones without a weird accent? Can she turn herself into a fake blonde for that matter, can she learn to speak the Royal British way? Will she accept herself in the end? At the beginning the Blonde Bombshell was going to be Nicole Kidman. Realizing that it might be difficult to get the rights, I thought about Marilyn Monroe or the British Marilyn Monroe Diana Dors. But that would mean a period movie and that could also be expensive. It is important for you to know that this story can be adapted. So now the Blonde Bombshell is an imagined British actress with French overtones called Mademoiselle Miou, though her real name is Erika Precious. Smyrna was the name of the actual city Izmir in Turkey (as Constantinople is now Istanbul). The parents of Smyrna Durmus had great hopes for their daughter, she was said to be the most beautiful girl of Izmir and was promised to a great and rich man. She was referred to as the Jewel of Izmir. Unfortunately Smyrna had other ideas, weird ideas, she wanted to be an actress at any cost, living in contradiction with her family values and hopes. She decided to leave for London where she could study theatre and acting. Being wrong and knowing about it, being perhaps right and still being powerless to make it all happen. Greatness, you feel it inside, but it is damn difficult to get it all there, to make people realize that you are worth everything. You are the Jewel of Izmir, and they better learn it now before you die. She has all these ideals inside of her and they might never see the light of day. She feels she should be the one out there, she should be known worldwide, her, and not Mademoiselle Miou! In her mind she has as much right to be there as the greatest Blonde actress ever. All the details above will be discussed in the short film that I will detail here, but for the long feature film we can start in Turkey with the parents and the rich boyfriend. So for the short film it begins in London where Smyrna has a British girlfriend Judy Mayflower. Smyrna has finished her studies in theatre and works as a Belly Dancer in some Turkish restaurant in the West End. Of course this is not what she wants, and she goes to every audition there is hoping to make it. In between a useless call to her agent and some speech lessons via her CD player, she will meet a failed director pretending to be called Barry Lyndon. He will tell her every lies he can to get her into bed. He will succeed and Smyrna will find him a bit later with another woman to whom he also lied to. Her friend Judy is pregnant and is trying to convince Smyrna to let go of her dream of being the new Mademoiselle Miou. She insists that Smyrna should become a wife and have a baby instead. I think it would be good to show both sides of the medal. That great Mademoiselle Miou’s life and how everything came to her out of the sky, and Smyrna, the struggling actress who has to work hard to get anywhere. She is obsessed with Mademoiselle Miou and wishes to be her, until one point where she understands that she will never be her and she will never get any roles. She will become a stalker, walking around the house of the famous actress, saying bitter things about it all, until she decides to kill Erika Precious in order to get fame out of it. Unfortunately she misses her target and is sent into a mental institute. I can see Mademoiselle Miou walking in the mental institute, asking Smyrna’s motivations, why she wanted to kill her. This is what we wish to get to, her motivation, the consequences of her actions, what if she really did kill her? This can be considered sociologically, psychologically and philosophically. These three words are not meaningless, let me explain… Sociological: What is her action of killing her and her motivation in the first place imply for society? What is wrong with society that made her believe that she was nothing and that to be the Blonde Bombshell was acceptable although disgusting all at the same time? Psychological: What is wrong in her head - which probably society drove her to - that pushed her to act so desperately? What is it that made her think that Mademoiselle Miou deserved to die and she deserved to be where Mademoiselle Miou is? Philosophical: And what is the philosophy or the morale we can take out of all this once everything is over and the dust comes down? In other words, why did she wanted to be such a Blonde Bombshell anyway, she is Turkish, she should be her own Greek Goddess, with her own personality. She should be herself and not that Blonde Bimbo with whom she had nothing in common. Did she not know that Mademoiselle Miou (Erika Precious) was living a nightmare anyway? It was only great to be her on the surface, not inside. If only she had known all that, she would never have wanted to be her in the first place. And that is what she will get to understand in time, once it is too late. Poor her… she had the power to be happy with what she had, to succeed on her own terms by taking control of her own life. She had to make it happened with fierce determination and she might have got there, but now she has screwed it all up forever. She will never make it. The visit to the mental institute by Mademoiselle Miou will give us the time to analyze the actions of Smyrna, to understand that she was wrong in the first place. Mademoiselle Miou wants to understand, she does not comprehend her own self or her own success. The media have built that fake monster that she has become, she has nothing to do with all the lies that can be read in the tabloids. She had to fight too to get where she is. She had to leave home because her parents did not accept her choices, so she understands the bitterness. She wants to know what is going on in Smyrna’s head because she often thinks about what would have happened if she had not continued to struggle to get where she is. She was as desperate as Smyrna, and after the success life does go on and is not very nice either. Once Smyrna hears all that from Erika Precious, she agrees that they have things in common. When Erika asks if Smyrna would have still tried to kill her if she had known all that, Smyrna does not answer.
Long Synopsis of Struggling Actress: Smyrna Durmus
Scene 1 – Meeting of Smyrna and Barry Lyndon in a café – Lying to get her in bed The story begins in a café where we can see Smyrna Durmus talking about her future with Barry Lyndon, a failed Director trying to get her into bed. He promises her the world, yet when she asks what he has done so far he remains vague. She points out that extraordinary coincidence as Barry Lyndon is the title of a movie by Stanley Kubrick. He smiles. She wants to believe that this is true, that he will get her somewhere and they discuss her role in his new movie due to start shooting this year. It sounds too perfect to be true, he needs a beautiful Turkish girl as the lead role. As these roles are rare these days Smyrna is already dreaming of being a star. After he tells her that he has his own production company, she invites him to come to her apartment so they can discuss this exciting project in more details.
Smyrna wakes up the next morning beside a naked Barry Lyndon. She puts her hands in front of her face, realizing her mistake: what have I done? He wakes up, all pleased with his success and ready for more passion. She pushes him away. Suddenly she wonders if Barry Lyndon is his real name, she has her first doubts about him. She is trying to remember which movies he has made so far, how he will get the money for their movie together, what is the name of his production company… she has never heard of any of it. Her questions make him panic. Uncomfortable he suddenly appears to be needed elsewhere and leaves faster than you can say goodbye. On his way out he bumps into Judy Mayflower, the best friend of Smyrna.
Judy enters the room, wondering if she is welcomed. Smyrna let her in. We then see the obsession of Smyrna in its entirety. Mademoiselle Miou is everywhere: on the TV, on posters on the wall, even on the T-shirt that Smyrna is wearing. When Judy sees that Smyrna is doing everything to get into her obsession, she knows something is wrong, like if Smyrna was running away from reality. She asks Smyrna what she got herself into this time. She went to bed last night with a Barry Lyndon, director of his own production company and once again she is dreaming of success. When Judy asks what the guy has done before, the name of his production company or anything else about the guy for that matter, Smyrna is obliged to say that she does not know any of the answers despite a night of talking with him. Judy says that Smyrna will never be like Erika Precious alias Mademoiselle Miou, she is not a page 3 pin-up girl. How many movies has she made this year alone, Smyrna asks in despair! She states that she is the reason she cannot get any roles, because of Blonde Bombshells like her. She symbolizes all of the others, she is the reason the whole industry believe in blonde bimbos. Judy makes Smyrna understand that she will never make it as an actress, that she should forget about all that. She is pregnant herself and tells Smyrna that she is the most beautiful woman she knows, that she should find a husband, marry, have a baby and find a nice stable job in the city instead of being that belly dancer in a restaurant dreaming of being Mademoiselle Miou. Smyrna says that Judy sounds just like her own parents. That she can still hear them say that they had great hopes for their daughter, she was the most beautiful girl of Izmir: “The Jewel of Izmir”! She rejected the greatest and richest man of Turkey for her dreams and now she will die alone in London, hoping to be the greatest of all time but never to make it. When Judy says that perhaps she should understand and be like a normal person, and that by the way she wants her money back because the baby is coming and all, Smyrna jumps on the phone to call her agent.
The screen is split in two for the phone call. We can see Smyrna on one side and the agent on the other. Elizabeth is in her bubble bath doing crosswords with a glass of Champagne beside her. She asks Smyrna to wait while she writes down the word she just found. Smyrna does not want to wait, she wants to know the latest news. Any parts in a film or a series in sight? She has no more money and she wants to know about her last audition. The Agent mentions that Smyrna is always on her mind, that she is looking hard, she is constantly thinking about her… but she failed her last audition. Smyrna is not pleased, she wishes to be in the mind of Directors, Producers, Executive Producers, even Runners if possible, but not in the mind of her agent. She needs to get somewhere fast! Elizabeth reminds her that she is Turkish, she can only play the roles of Eastern European girls… and by the way, can she fake a Russian accent for a commercial? Smyrna is exasperated and hangs up the phone. Smyrna gets out of the apartment, leaving Judy in the background winging about getting serious in life and to be realistic. We can hear her shouting at the back, all distorted: get yourself a life!
Smyrna is walking in the street like a model would walk on the catwalk of a big fashion show. Suddenly at a bus stop she hears two young girls talking about Mademoiselle Miou. She almost falls flat on the street. She shouts at the girls that Mademoiselle Miou is not that great, she has put on weight and she is getting old. She has wrinkles and she is a fake blonde!!! The girls, frightened, run away from Smyrna.
On the next corner we can see the beautiful house of Mademoiselle Miou and Smyrna is still walking like a star, putting her hair back and getting the posture. She is talking to herself cynically. She blasts Mademoiselle Miou, curses her, dream all at the same time that she will get somewhere one day and will spit in Erika Precious’ face when asked about her by journalists following her around. She will take power over Mademoiselle Miou, that old bitch who is not dying fast enough. Suddenly a car is getting out of the gates of the house, it is Mademoiselle Miou. Smyrna hides by the wall, hitting it on her way there. She sees Mademoiselle Miou getting away and she shouts: blonde bitch!
On her way back home, Smyrna passes in front of the café where she met Barry Lyndon the previous day. He is sitting at a table with another blonde girl. She gets in and confronts them. She asks: Barry Lyndon, what are doing here with her? Barry Lyndon, the other girl asks? His name is Arthur Clarke, the great writer with a new script that has just been sold for 2 million pounds to Hollywood! Smyrna turns around and asks the girl if by any chance she is a blonde bitch actress who is perfect for the role? She tells her that yesterday he was Barry Lyndon, Director of his own production company with a movie to direct needing a Turkish girl! They are all very embarrassed. Smyrna takes a pint of beer and drops it on his head. She leaves.
Smyrna is back in her apartment. She is getting ready to go to the Turkish restaurant where she will be dancing as a belly dancer. At the same time she is practicing her speech with a learning CD. She is trying to pronounce the Royal British way but it is not working. She puts the appropriate music for her belly dancing role then she decides to wear a blonde wig. She also puts surreal electric blue contact lenses and a lot of red lipstick. She dances around in front of her mirror. Judy enters at that moment. She is out of her mind. She tells Smyrna exactly what she thinks: you look like a bad Mademoiselle Miou from hell! You are wasting your life and you will never get anywhere! If only your poor parents could see you right now, they would think you have become a whore! And then she slams the door. The next scene shows Smyrna stopping the music, sitting down in front of her mirror, taking the wig off and, with her hand, washing away the lipstick all over her face. She appears to have reached rock bottom and she cries. And then, in the corner of her eyes, some sparks are coming back. She opens the drawer and gets a knife or a gun out. She simply says: Mademoiselle Miou, be warned, my name will be attached to yours till the end of time. I will correct this injustice, give hope, and be the savior of every other struggling actress around. I will be famous after all…
On the red carpet in front of a cinema, everyone is waiting for Mademoiselle Miou, including a drunken Smyrna acting completely out of character, smoking a cigarette and lacking respect for the policemen and bodyguards pushing her away. Suddenly Mademoiselle Miou arrives. Smyrna takes her knife or her gun and attempts to kill her. Unfortunately she misses and we can see the police stopping Smyrna. The eyes of Mademoiselle Miou are looking at Smyrna’s rage, she is horrified that she tried to kill her. In that turmoil everything goes slowly like in a dream, and the sound is cut off so the music can take over.
We can see Mademoiselle Miou or her high heels walking toward the window where Smyrna, dressed as a patient, is sitting. Smyrna looks completely defeated and horrible. Mademoiselle Miou looks like she just got out of a shoot. She talks alone as Smyrna is neither speaking nor listening. Mademoiselle Miou wants to understand, she does not comprehend her own self or her own success. She had to fight too to get where she is, she had to leave home because of her parents and she understands the bitterness. When Smyrna hears that, she says: me too! Erika Precious wants to know what is going on in Smyrna’s head because she often thinks about what would have happened if she had not continued to struggle to get where she is, she was as desperate as Smyrna. She tells Smyrna that she should have just continued and, like herself, eventually she would have had her big break. When at the end Mademoiselle Miou asks whether Smyrna would have still tried to kill her knowing what she knows now, Smyrna smiles but does not answer… Roland Michel Tremblay  
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