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In Real Life?

By Allen McGill

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My mother had been a movie buff all her life. She knew all the films, the stars, and the less-than-stars. Often she'd pick my brother and me up after school to take us to a movie before getting home in time fix dinner for dad and us.

In the mid-50's, my brother Jack and I were in our early teens. Having been introduced by Mom into a lifestyle that included movies as as natural a pastime as eating and sleeping, we spent a lot of time in theaters both together or separately.

Movie production was running high at the time in an effort to combat the insurgence of television into the entertainment market. And the quality of films increased with the number of productions. Stories were more intelligent, acting was noticeably superior and the production values greatly improved--obvious to even we teenagers.

Around the same time there was an influx of what we called "foreign films." Most were from Italy and France, but some I remember came from India and Japan. They were different in that they were mostly in black-and-white, but also in that they often showed a side of life that we didn't see all that often in American films. They showed a seedier, darker, more "back-street" way of living. "Film-noir," as some later came to be known.

Jack wasn't particularly interested in that style of film, but I was and would seek them out on my own. Which is how I found the French film, Diabolique. It was released in 1955, and had a French cast I'd never heard of, including Simone Signoret who I still think of as having the sexiest eyes I've ever seen.

Billed as a scary movie, it was just the type of film I knew I'd enjoy. It wasn't of the "horror" genre, the Godzilla-types hadn't been born yet, but of the true psychological terror-type.  I, having been a horror-comic aficionado since I was old enough to read, was eager to see the film.

The movie stunned me. It was filled with every gimmick ever thought of to create suspense: dim lighting, music, enticing dialogue, pauses, and uncertainty. I loved it, and ran home to tell everyone that it was a must see!

My brother went the same evening and we spent the night talking through the film time and time again. Then the plot evolved.

Mom hadn't yet seen Diabolique and didn't seem all that interested in "another one of those dark foreign pictures." Jack and I kept talking it up until, finally, she gave in and agreed to see it the next day.

"What a terrible picture," she said to us when we arrived home from school the following afternoon. "I was afraid to walk home from the movie, even in broad daylight!" She was laughing as she said all this. Mom was a self-confident, take-charge woman in her thirties at the time. "You rotten kids, sending me to see something like that."

She obviously loved the picture, too.

Diabolique tells of a tyrannical man's wife and mistress (a being rarely acknowledged as existing in those film years) joining forces to kill him by drowning him in a pond. Later, they return to their shared home to find the stubborn man floating in a bathtub, replete with pond lilies and flotsam. But just for a while. He begins to rise from the tub seeking vengeance. Fabulous!

As Jack and I had planned, I disappeared for a few minutes before he made up some excuse for Mom go into the bathroom. She entered, went to the medicine cabinet, and then turned to see me lying in the tub with my eyes rolled back in my head (as in the movie). As I grasped the edge of the tub and began to rise, she let out a shriek.

That broke the spell. Jack, who was hiding outside, and I began to laugh so hard that Mom stared at us open-mouthed. Then she joined in the laughter, taking time to slap both of us on the back of our heads for our "very funny" joke.

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Originally from NYC, Allen lives, writes, acts and directs theatre in Mexico. His published fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, photos, etc., have appeared in print as well as online: NY Times, The Writer, Newsday, Literary Potpourri, Flashquake, Poetry Midwest, Poetic Voices, Herons Nest, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, World Haiku Review, and many others. He is haibun editor for Simply Haiku.  His website is here.

© 2004 Me Three