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Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 194 из 359Enraged, he strangles his wife and is subsequently sent to the gallows himself. Another hangman collects five golden guineas.*
The plot is kissing cousin to an episode from Thriller 's second season. In that one, the executioner was French, in charge of the guillotine instead of the gallows, and was presented as a sympathetic character (although his work has apparently not affected his appetite; he's a mountain of a man). He is due to execute a particularly foul murderer the next day at dawn. The killer has not given up hope, however; his girl friend has wormed her way into the lonely headsman's affections, and the two of them hope to take advantage of an old loophole in the law (and I should say here that I have no idea if the loophole is a genuine one, like the American concept of double jeopardy, or simply the plot device of Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the story) which holds that if the executioner croaks on the day he is to do business, that day's condemned prisoner walks free.
*From The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present , edited by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979). P. 586.
The lady serves the executioner a huge breakfast laced with strong poison. He eats heartily, as usual, and then sets off for the prison. He's halfway there when the first agonizing pains strike. The rest of the episode is a chilly exercise in suspense as the camera cuts back and forth between the cell of the condemned man and the executioner's agonized walk through the streets of Paris. The executioner, obviously a type-A personality, is determined to do his duty.
He reaches the prison, collapses halfway across the courtyard . . . and then begins to crawl toward the guillotine. The prisoner is brought out, dressed in the proper open-collared white shirt (the screenwriter had obviously read his Tale of Two Cities ) and the two of them converge at the guillotine. Now at the end of his rope (ha-ha), the executioner nevertheless manages to get the screaming prisoner's head in the stock and positioned over the basket before collapsing, stone dead.
The condemned prisoner, on his knees with his butt poking up-looking a bit like a turkey caught in a shakepole fence-begins screaming that he's free! Free, do you hear?
Ah-hah-hah-hah! The doctor who was to pronounce the condemned dead now finds himself called upon to perform that duty upon the erstwhile executioner. He tries for a pulse and finds none-but when he drops the executioner's wrist, it falls on the guillotine's lever. The blade swishes down- thud ! We fade out, knowing that rough justice has been done.
The plot is kissing cousin to an episode from Thriller 's second season. In that one, the executioner was French, in charge of the guillotine instead of the gallows, and was presented as a sympathetic character (although his work has apparently not affected his appetite; he's a mountain of a man). He is due to execute a particularly foul murderer the next day at dawn. The killer has not given up hope, however; his girl friend has wormed her way into the lonely headsman's affections, and the two of them hope to take advantage of an old loophole in the law (and I should say here that I have no idea if the loophole is a genuine one, like the American concept of double jeopardy, or simply the plot device of Cornell Woolrich, who wrote the story) which holds that if the executioner croaks on the day he is to do business, that day's condemned prisoner walks free.
*From The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present , edited by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979). P. 586.
The lady serves the executioner a huge breakfast laced with strong poison. He eats heartily, as usual, and then sets off for the prison. He's halfway there when the first agonizing pains strike. The rest of the episode is a chilly exercise in suspense as the camera cuts back and forth between the cell of the condemned man and the executioner's agonized walk through the streets of Paris. The executioner, obviously a type-A personality, is determined to do his duty.
He reaches the prison, collapses halfway across the courtyard . . . and then begins to crawl toward the guillotine. The prisoner is brought out, dressed in the proper open-collared white shirt (the screenwriter had obviously read his Tale of Two Cities ) and the two of them converge at the guillotine. Now at the end of his rope (ha-ha), the executioner nevertheless manages to get the screaming prisoner's head in the stock and positioned over the basket before collapsing, stone dead.
The condemned prisoner, on his knees with his butt poking up-looking a bit like a turkey caught in a shakepole fence-begins screaming that he's free! Free, do you hear?
Ah-hah-hah-hah! The doctor who was to pronounce the condemned dead now finds himself called upon to perform that duty upon the erstwhile executioner. He tries for a pulse and finds none-but when he drops the executioner's wrist, it falls on the guillotine's lever. The blade swishes down- thud ! We fade out, knowing that rough justice has been done.