E L S I E   V E N N E R
by
RALEIGH MARCELL
adapted from the novel by Oliver Wendell Holmes

period psychological thriller
107 pages WGA Registered

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Mary Ann Amato
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ELSIE VENNER
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17 year old Elsie Venner terrorizes classmates and villagers with her hypnotic eyes, cold and calculating ways, and a total lack of conscience, characteristics of the rattlesnake, to which she bears a remarkable affinity and a literal power over. She ultimately overcomes her nature through love and death.
In a New England village a pregnant woman is bitten by a rattlesnake. Before dying, she gives birth to a daughter, Elsie Venner. At 17 Elsie possesses a hypnotic beauty but a cold and aloof manner. She lives with her father in a gloomy mansion on the edge of the village which is dominated by a looming and mysterious Mountain known as a refuge for rattlesnakes.

Helen Darley, a teacher, is particularly affected by Elsie�s mesmeric eyes and calculating ways which Elsie has grown up learning to use to have her way with everyone. It is rumored that Elsie even poisoned her governess. Elsie wanders alone in the mountains for days on end.

A handsome new teacher, Bernard Langdon, is immediately drawn to Elsie. Helen warns him away from any involvement with Elsie. Helen fears that there is something not human looking out from behind Elsie�s glittering eyes. That Elsie is Evil.

When Elsie saves Bernard�s life from rattlesnakes he comes upon while exploring the Mountain, he is determined to discover the reasons for Elsie�s character and behavior. Those closest to Elsie think her character was formed before her birth. Others view her as a living example of Original Sin.

At the school, Elsie mercilessly tortures a girl who has shown the merest interest in Bernard by mocking the girl�s devout Catholicism, using her powers of suggestion and her glittering eyes to cause the girl to hang herself.
After an absence of many years, Elsie�s cousin, Richard, returns with the intention of marrying Elsie. Elsie, though, has fallen in love with Bernard. She manipulates Richard shamelessly, leading him into thinking she may return his affections.

Stimulated by her growing attraction to Bernard, Elsie questions her origin. When her father finally tells her the manner of her mother�s death and its connection to her �proclivities�, Elsie is overcome and retreats to the Mountain.

Amid a furious storm she takes refuge in a cave inhabited by her only confidants, the creatures with whom she shares an affinity: rattlesnakes. Only now, her former immunity and power over them has gone and she is bitten.

Bernard rescues her from the storm and the snakes but, to atone for her former deeds, she retreats into the Mountain, into the storm. Her beloved Mountain slides down upon her and the unfortunate and deluded cousin, Richard, burying them both and killing all the snakes of the Mountain.
ELSIE VENNER
from first edition (1861)
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other screenplays:
BEAUTIFUL OASIS
THE LADIES OF THE SACRED SOUTH
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