HUNTING PARADISE
A Script by Craig Harwood

Huntington Hartford, the heir to a great fortune, desperately tries to create the perfect museum, island, woman, but everything he touches fails. It’s only when he loses it all that he gains everything.

Synopsis

1991, an elderly Huntington Hartford, living in squalor, returns home from dinner with his beautiful ex-wife, Marjorie. They say goodbye. Hunt stares at photos and memories of his past and falls down the steps of his townhouse.

Flashback to 1949, Huntington Hartford glides into a nightclub, the center of attention, with Joan Crawford on his arm. He notices the cigarette girl, Marjorie Steele, an aspiring 18-year-old actress. As he tries to seduce her, he buys every pack of cigarettes she’s selling. Later that night, they bond over their controlling mothers and curious nature. Hunt asks her to join him in NYC and audition for a play he’s producing.

In NYC, Hunt whisks her through town and takes her to the opening of South Pacific where they discover they both lost their father at a young age and their relationship deepens. Hunt then runs around town as Marjorie waits in her hotel room until he finally arrives at her door as she’s packing up for LA. After begging, she agrees to go with him on a ride. He shows her the sight of his future museum, but she still wants to go back to her boring life in California.

Hunt offers her the lead part in the play. She asks, “But, I haven’t even auditioned.”

Hunt proposes with a 22 carat yellow diamond to Marjorie on their way to meet his mother, Henrietta. Strolling with Marjorie through her award winning rose garden, Henrietta worries about Hunt’s sensitive disposition. She tells Marjorie that she’ll have to take care of him and all of the responsibility of their wealth – she’s dying.

At Henrietta’s funeral, Marjorie meets Hunt’s illegitimate son, Buzzy and Hunt demands to get married as soon as possible. They go to Reno. On their return, Hunt begins building his Modern Museum of Art and Marjorie is a hit in the play. They have two children, but Hunt’s continues to flirt with young women. As the museum is about to open, they go to a small island off the coast of the Bahamas. In the perfect moment, Hunt can’t let it go and buys the island as Marjorie swims in the deep blue sea.

At the opening of the museum, Hunt ignores Marjorie who confesses to Dan, Hunt’s gay employee and confidant, that Hunt won’t have sex with her.

One year later, Marjorie arrives home from a tour as the lead in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” to find a young girl has taken her place. As she confronts Hunt at her coming home party, Marjorie looses control, strips and threatens to jump off the roof of their Penthouse.

In the morning, the image of the perfect all American family prevails until Cathy, their 7-year-old, shows a picture she has drawn of a naked woman jumping off a building. Later that night, Buzzy arrives to try to convince Hunt one last time to give him his last name, but Hunt refuses. He’s trying to get a zoning variance for his new hotel and can’t afford a scandal.

As the hotel finally gets ready to open, Dan tells Hunt that he’s resigning. They argue. Hunt with a desperate last attempt to hold on, kisses Dan and won’t let go.

Dan leaves as Marjorie arrives, but she finds out there is no room for her even though she sleeps in the same bed as her husband. Furious, Marjorie tries to convince Hunt to simplify their life, but Hunt isn’t interested. As Hunt finally realizes that his great fortune is lost, Marjorie tells him Buzzy is dead. He has shot himself in the head.

Marjorie leaves Hunt to save her own life leaving Hunt alone at the opening of his perfect, but failed hotel.

We pick up with Hunt in bed with a broken hip reminiscing with Marjorie, but his youngest daughter is worried for his safety. The house is overrun with drug addicts. Marjorie and Juliet get the police to raid the place and force Hunt to fly to Paradise Island. Finally at 81, on Paradise Island with his daughter, he visits his hotel and looks at the perfect cloister he built so long ago - finally, unexpectedly happy.