Original subtitles

People ask, where do you get your ideas?

Well, right here.

Oh, this is my Martian landscape.

Somewhere in this room is an African belt.

Just beyond, perhaps, is a small Illinois town where I grew up. And I'm

surrounded on every side by my magician's toy shop.

I'll never starve here.

I just look around, find what I need, and begin.

I'm Ray Bradbury, and this is...

Well then, right now, what shall it

be?

Out of all this, what do I choose to make a story?

I never know where the next one will take me.

And the trip?

Exactly one half exhilaration, exactly one half terror.

Can we have some real light, please? Thank you.

I'm Detective Lieutenant Kravitch. Mr. Fabian?

Let me out.

Let me out.

Oh, please.

Oh, please.

Please listen. Won't someone let me out?

Won't anyone listen? Please.

Ria. Ria Bushinsky.

This is a serious business.

Silence. Oh.

Quiet now.

There's a good girl.

Please don't laugh.

After what has happened, you should be kind. If you don't mind, Mr. Fabian,

we'll have your dummy act later.

Dummy?

She's the finest handmade porcelain china puppet actress doll in the world.

yes, I'm sure.

Now, please.

Mrs. Fabian?

Mr. Howard Douglas?

Mr. Fabian's promoter and press agent?

And this.

Is Robert Henry Ockham known to any or all of you?

Well, Ockham knew you or one of you.

Said so at the stage door many times in the last week. Yes?

So, by God, someone is lying.

They are.

It's sad, but they are. Damn it, Fabian. Pay no attention to her, Lieutenant.

Her or you, you or her, get together, you two.

We'll never be together again after tonight.

Careful.

Ah, thank you.

Talk to her if you will.

No.

My lovely one.

Made from the finest rare imported woods.

And porcelain?

Worthy of Napoleon's gifts to Josephine.

She's appeared in London, Rome, Paris, Istanbul, Cairo.

Loved across the world by thousands who simply cannot believe that her beauty

was...

Once just simply a piece of clay.

Enough, please.

Such praise makes others sad.

Ah, yes.

Others.

Damn.

What are you up to?

I'm helpless.

Oh, I know what you think.

You think that she's here in my throat.

But no, she's not. She's somewhere else.

Maybe here.

Certainly here.

She's not there.

No.

She hides herself so easily.

She waits and watches me. She tells me what to do. I do it.

She speaks where I cannot. She's good where I am evil. She's open where I am

closed.

She's all around, about, and... Sometimes she builds a wall and hides

herself and doesn't say a word to me, but then again, sometimes, like tonight,

she speaks.

Mr. Daddler, are you...

Mrs. Fabian, very close friends.

See here.

I do see.

When the price agent sits where the husband should be sitting.

Well, the way you look at the marionette, Mrs. Fabian.

You make fists when she talks.

If you think for one moment that I'm jealous of a thing like that.

Alice, don't.

Let her.

Let her.

I married John because I loved him.

But over the years, I saw that he had lived all of his life

for her.

And finally, I saw that if there were two parts to John, why, the best part,

the good part, was Rebushinka.

Tell about Mr.

Douglas.

What is there to tell?

It's an old story.

One door shuts, another opens.

Hmm. Yeah, of course.

And who came here? A poor man.

Know about you.

Came here tonight.

A blackmailer threatening to tell your husband.

That's even sillier than all the rest. I didn't kill him.

Why should she?

Mr. Fabian already knew about us.

Oh, I did indeed.

Didn't I, William Shinsker?

Oh, God, help me.

That's enough for one night.

Let's take the body out of here.

Look familiar?

Well? Well, indeed.

The stage and theater museum is a great place. They loaned me this.

So you had a different act.

Sweet William.

That's not all.

How?

How's this?

Pretty fast -forward, our middle -class gumshoe, eh?

Well?

Well?

Speak. Tell him.

No comment?

Allow me.

Ilyana Ryamonova.

Born New York City, 1958.

Not paper machine, not wood, not puppet.

But a woman who once lived and moved around and then disappeared.

Like 10 ,000 other ballet lovers, I fell in love with her.

I watched her dance a hundred times. How could I not?

And so I made a doll.

Like her.

No.

No. No, no.

That makes two of us who don't believe you.

You loved and knew the real woman.

Yes.

Very well.

The truth.

We were lovers.

We traveled the world.

She without dancing.

I was sweet with him.

But I was mad with love. We quarreled violently, and she ran from me, vanished

forever this time.

I hated myself.

How to bring her back forever?

I searched for her everywhere for months, but she was gone like a piece of

tissue paper blown over the sky.

But somehow, some way, I knew that I would have her back.

Only one way.

to shape, form, carve from memory.

Brow, eyes, incredibly delicate nose,

chin, lips.

Days and nights, and then weeks and months, I worked.

Obsessed.

My voice.

Hey, what's happening?

It's going.

Going.

Yes. I'm here.

So, that's it.

You loved a real woman.

Drove her off with your jealousy.

She ran, and you met a doll just like her.

Nothing more.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Which still leaves us with a murdered man, damn it, Ockham.

As you all claim you never saw him before, yet he came here asking for you

dozen times, a dozen times. He knew something.

I smell blackmail.

If it was this easy for me to find those posters, maybe he did too.

Duck up your past, suspected the worst, showed up here, and...

The first letter came a month ago.

The letter said, Ryabushinska.

Born 1958.

Died 1978.

Born again 1979.

Oakham had once worked for us years ago. He was there when I vanished.

Now, years later, he showed up.

I lay in my box and heard him die.

You cannot hear.

You cannot speak.

Oh, I wish that were so.

But I do hear.

I must speak.

Those were fine and terrible times.

Jealous rages.

And then the stripe.

The blow.

He didn't mean, but it was done.

No!

Yes. At long last, the truth.

We have lived twice.

But you killed us both now.

I've lived with your weakness and your lies since you killed me.

But when you killed him, we both knew it was finished.

I can't stay.

You must.

No.

You're alone now.

Bye.

No.

Good...

Make her come back.

I can't.

And neither can you.

Little Fabian, I must place you under arrest.