MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (PART ONE)

Screenplay

My Beautiful Laundrette was first shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in autumn 1985. The film opened at the London Film Festival on 15 November and was subsequently released at London cinemas on 16 November 1885.

The cast included:

JOHNNY Daniel Day Lewis

GENGHIS Richard Graham

SALIM Derrick Branche

OMAR Gordon Warnecke

PAPA Roshan Seth

NASSER Saeed Jaffrey

RACHEL Shirley Anne Field

BILOUIS Charu Bala Choksi

CHERRY Souad Faress

TANIA Rita Wolf

ZAKI Gurdial Sira

MOOSE Stephen Marcus

GANG MEMBER ONE Dawn Archibald

GANG MEMBER TWO Jonathan Moore

Photography Oliver Stapleton

Film Editor Mick Audsley

Designer Hugo Luczyc Wyhowski

Sound Recordist Albert Bailey

Music Ludus Tonalis

Casting Debbie McWilliams

Costume Design Lindy Hemming

Make-up Elaine Carew

Screenplay Hanif Kureishi

Producers Sarah Radclyffe and Tim Bevan

Director Stephen Frears

1. EXT. OUTSIDE A LARGE DETACHED HOUSE. DAY.

CHERRY and SALIM get our of their car. Behind them, the FOUR JAMAICANS get out of their car.

CHERRY and SALIM walk towards the house. It is a large falling-down place, in South London. It's quiet at the moment - early morning - but the ground floor windows are boarded up. On the boarded-up windows is painted: ‘Your greed will be the death of us all' and ‘We will defeat the running wogs of capitalism’ and 'Opium is the opium of the unemployed'.

CHERRY and SALIM look up at the house. The FOUR JAMAICANS stand behind them, at a respectful distance.

CHERRY: I don't even remember buying this house at the auction. What are we going to do with it?

SALIM: Tomorrow we start to renovate it.

CHERRY: How many people are living here?

SALIM: There are no people living here. There are only squatters. And they're going to be renovated - right now.

(And SALIM pushes CHERRY forward, giving her the key. CHERRY goes to the front door of the house. SALIM, with TWO JAMAICANS goes round the side of the house. TWO JAMAICANS go round the other side.)

2. INT. A ROOM IN THE SQUAT. DAY.

GENGHIS and JOHNNY are living in a room in the squat. It is freezing cold, with broken windows. GENGHIS is asleep on a mattress, wrapped up. He has the flu. JOHNNY is lying frozen in a deck chair, with blankets over him. He has just woken up.

3. EXT. OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. DAY.

CHERRY tries to unlock the front door of the place. But the door has been barred. She looks in through the letter box. A barricade has been erected in the hall.

4. EXT. THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE. DAY

The JAMAICANS break into the house through side windows. They climb in. SALIM also climbs into the house.

INT. INSIDE THE HOUSE. DAY.

The JAMAICANS and SALIM are in the house now. The JAMAICANS are kicking open the doors of the squared rooms. The SQUATTERS are unprepared, asleep or half awake, in disarray.

The JAMAICANS are going from room to room, yelling for everyone to leave now or get thrown out of the windows with their belongings.

Some SQUATTERS complain but they are shoved out of their rooms into the hall; or down the stairs. SALIM is eager about all of this.

6. INT. GENGHIS AND JOHNNY'S ROOM. DAY.

JOHNNY looks up the corridor to see what's happening. He goes back into the room quickly and starts stuffing his things into a black plastic bag. He is shaking GENGHIS at the same time.

GENGHIS: I'm ill.

JOHNNY: We're moving house.

GENGHIS: No, we've got to fight.

JOHNNY: Too early in the morning.

(He rips the blankets off GENGHIS, who lies there fully dressed, coughing and shivering. A JAMAICAN bursts into the room.)

All right, all right.

(The JAMAICAN watches a moment as GENGHIS, too weak to resist, but cursing violently, takes the clothes JOHNNY shoves at him and follows JOHNNY to the window. JOHNNY opens the broken window.)