Original subtitles

On display this evening, a pastiche of painting from oddball-land.

The poet Sir Max Beerbohm reflected that no one ever died of laughter.

Object of brush and palette: The rebuttal.

The clown is Jackie Slater. His occupation, a comedian.

His aspiration is to collect funny bones and hang them on the walls of his life...

to hide the cracked plaster and yellowed wallpaper...

that is part of the interior decoration of failure.

Poor Jackie Slater: A bad joke told in a foreign language in an empty hall.

The comic unable to coax laughter.

The painting is called Make Me Laugh.

And this lightless limbo is called the Night Gallery.

Hi, folks. I wanna tell you you're a wonderful

audience to work for. I get a lot of love out of you.

That's what I dig about you. Hey, one of the troops. Good to see you, marine.

I tell you, man, supporting the country, it's beautiful.

I did one of those veterans hospitals shows, you know, to help the boys.

Got hit with a crutch.

Hey, uh, folks, uh,

do you wanna hear the one about the astronaut who got stuck up in space?

He says, "How long am I gonna be up here?" 'Cause he

called mission control. They said, "A millennium or so."

He says, "Where am I gonna stay?" He says, "There's a hotel." He goes to the hotel.

The guy says, "How long will you need the room?"

And he says, "Oh, about a millennium."

The guy says, "That'll cost you eight cents." He says,

"Eight cents for a millennium? I'm a little hungry."

He says, "I'm gonna have a sandwich."

Then the guy says, "Okay, that'll cost you $800."

He says, "Eight cents for a room for a millennium and $800 for a sandwich?"

He says, "Yeah, in this hotel, we get you by the sandwich."

Uh, do you know how to make a venetian blind?

Poke your finger in his eye.

My wife went to the West indies.

Jamaica? She went of her own accord.

Hey, how do you like this suit, huh? Sort of a chopped liver gray, huh?

The wife, uh... Well, it's a nice fit, you know.

But the wife says it looks more like a convulsion, huh?

Hey, uh, folks, uh, you know, I was standing out

in front of the Plaza Hotel talking to my friends.

Uh, matter of fact, that's where I was living...

In front of the Plaza Hotel. Yeah.

Well, I know you're out there, folks. Uh, yeah. Uh-huh. And I'm up here, folks.

Of course, if the lighting is bad in here and

you can't find me, just listen for the sound.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want to present to you...

four of the loveliest girls you've ever seen

in your life, The Rocky Mountain Rockettes.

Yeah!

♪♪

How did it go, booby?

Not so bad for a first shot.

I'm gonna rework it a little before the next show.

So say it!

Say what? What do you wanna hear?

It would have been nice to hear you out there,

pushing a couple of yocks over for me.

Beating your hands together a couple of times.

I'm playing Forest Lawn.

I got the only agent who makes it like it's a federal act...

that says he's got to be horizontal after sunset.

Hmm. Didn't go over so good, huh, booby?

The only tomb with a stage in it.

That's the only stage with a corpse on it.

He warms up slow, Mr. Mishkin.

It's 102 out there. The stiff couldn't warm up in a boiler room.

Tough audience, Mr. Mishkin. You'll give me that, won't you?

Tell you what I'll give you, papers to walk. Do the next show, then cut.

But you said three weekends.

That was before I heard him.

Look. You are his agent. Isn't that the idea?

Sixteen years, Mr. Mishkin.

Then book him in the Air Force Museum.

This guy doesn't tell jokes. He goes on bombing missions.

Hey, you can't ace me out after one lousy show, Mr. Mishkin.

I can't? Read your contract.

Gimme a break. What do you got to lose?

I mean, an act's gotta build. I mean, a couple of weeks for the word of mouth.

Tell him, Julie. Tell him, Julie.

Tell him about that gig in Buffalo. Six weeks held over!

Capacity audience in a tough room!

I mean, when I start to grow, man, I zoom.

I can fill the Hollywood Bowl.

Unasked, the following opinion:

You couldn't fill a men's room with free shoe shines.

Wanna know something?

I was a fat...

ugly little kid.

And when I used to go to boy's camp...

all the kids used to...

push me off the dock.

And everybody used to laugh.

So I decided that's what I'd do with my life.

I'd make people laugh.

You made some people laugh, booby.

Jules,

my loyal,

steadfast friend and artist's representative.

I'm a second-rate schlep going nowhere.

Sixteen years we scratched each other's backs.

I was still digging around in garbage dumps for one-nighters.

Well, what does he know?

I-I mean, can you picture that creep laughing at anything, huh?

I got a funny bit.

Now that's funny, me thinking I'm funny.

That's funny.

I wish I could make somebody laugh.

I'd give up everything I got.

Everything I got...

just to make somebody laugh.

Hey, barkeep, doesn't this thing ever pay off?

- Jackie Slater? - Hmm?

Your agent called, Jackie.

Loyal, steadfast and true.

Bankrupt, dispossessed and on his way to Philadelphia with a steel guitar band.

Without me?

I gather you didn't kill them in Perth Amboy.

They were dead already in Perth Amboy.

I give you Perth Amboy.

I give you Michigan's Palladium.

Six tables with a pallbearer at each one of them.

We have not met, yefendi.

Chatterje is the name. Miracles by profession.

Miracles. Miracles.

That's just what I need, Mr. Chatterje.

You are now face-to-face with Mr. Unlucky.

Forgiveness, Mr. Slater, but compared to me,

you are the winner of the Irish Sweepstakes.

You are the owner of the 1969 New York Mets.

And on the day they repealed prohibition, you are the Little Old Winemaker.

Your indulgence, Mr. Chatterje, but I am a-a ship maker in the desert.

I am a diamond cutter with the palsy.

I am an opera singer with laryngitis.

Reflect if you will, Mr. Slater, on this undersized guru who sits beside you;

This child of adversity.

They booked me in a Democratic dinner in New Rochelle.

They wanted to replace me with William F. Buckley.

180,000 guys roaming the streets, looking for a bar.

And what do I get? The formaldehyde twins.

Now for laughs, why don't you two guys go out in the park and get mugged, huh?

Preferable. Decidedly preferable to what is in store for me----

death, certainly before dishonor.

You, Mr. Slater, are yet a young man with much ahead of you.

It need not always be Perth Amboy.

You could yet make it on The Andy Williams Show.

I, on the other hand, am fingering the tassels at the far end of my rope.

By midnight tonight, if I do not perform a miracle,

I am relieved of my powers and I have dishonored my ancestors.

So work a miracle. Who's stopping you?

There is no willing recipient.

No soul trusting enough to allow this poor guru to conjure up a blessing.

I am without hope.

I am a dispossessed soul, tiptoeing in agony...

across the wasteland of my shattered dreams.

Wait a minute. What's with this miracle bit?

Ah, you are now diddling with the essence, yefendi.

Every miracle-working guru must work a wonder at least once a month.

I am in arrears, hence disaster.

What kind of miracle?

Name it.

Could you get me on The Dean Martin Show?

You should only ask.

Could you get me four weeks at The Sands in Las Vegas?

With options.

Could... Could you... Could you...

Speak, yefendi, speak!

Could you fix it so I can make people laugh?

Hysterically. Uncontrollably.

Beyond your wildest dreams.

So do it.

Do it? Make a miracle.

Th-This moment?

You got until midnight to make a miracle, so... so be my guest.

I-It shall be done, but...

But what? But what? The payoff, huh? Huh?

What? The small print, huh?

Candor dictates certain prior admissions, Mr. Slater.

Before a miracle is wrought, it is necessary that I leave no truth unspoken.

This is a cardinal rule amongst the Order of Working Miracle-making Gurus.

In the hierarchy of my art, how shall I say,

I am something less than proficient.

That is to say I am given to small imperfections in the miracles wrought.

Which is why! Find myself at this 11th hour...

so precariously in the proximity of the proverbial creek.

What imperfections?

Insignificant imperfections. Small, itsy-bitsy.

But it is necessary that I acquaint you with the fact

that in the circle of my peers...

I am known as... as a klutz.

So I'm obliged to tell you of certain miracles wrought by me...

where small ironies intruded,

and the results were, how shall I say, unfortunate.

I don't care.

There was a wrestler in Vero Beach, Florida, who wanted to visit Tibet.

That was his dream. He awoke to find himself stranded atop Mount Everest,

in the midst of an unmerciful blizzard.

They finally had to fetch him down with a pair of ice tongs.

I wanna make people laugh!

I have in mind another ill-starred venture,

having to do with a retired schoolteacher in Spokane, Washington.

A Civil War buff. A passionate admirer of the Great Emancipator.

Wanted only one thing: To be in Lincoln's shoes.

Wound up in an insane asylum, claiming he was a woolen sock.

Had to be restrained from sticking darning needles into his head.

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Slater?

There are miracles, and there are risks.

But I don't care. I'll take the risks. Just do it!

It is done. It is done! Done!

What? Done.

- What? Wh-What's done? - "What's done?"

What did you say? Did you say, "What's done?"

What's done? What's done? What's done?

What's done?

I can't believe you said "What's done?"

Oh, I can't believe it. He said, "What's done?"

Come here. Come here. This guy has got the

greatest routine. Say it again. "What's done?"

What's done? Come here.

Do it. Do it. Give it to them. What's done?

What's done?

Hey, guru,

you done it.

You made a miracle.

Yes, yefendi. I'm afraid you're right.

You know how to make a venetian blind? Poke your finger in his eye.

♪♪

Hi, booby.

Aw, you killed 'em. You were fantastic. I was listening.

I mean, all you had to do was to open up your mouth.

Yeah.

I was, uh,

I was really proud of you, Jackie.

You should be. I done it all myself.

I thought steel guitar bands was your current thing.

Was, is right. They rusted out on me.

I got'em a fair date in Columbus, Ohio, and they got booed off the stage.

I had no choice, Jackie. I had to take on somebody else or starve.

Forget it. I understand.

What I don't understand though...

is how come I'm not getting any kicks.

What do you mean?

I mean I'm boffo wherever I am.

I mean, every time I open up my mouth, everything I say, they scream.

I mean, I tell old jokes, Julie. I don't mean just old, I mean with cobwebs on them.

I mean antiques, and they roll all over the floor.

Well, that's great.

It should be great.

But it isn't. It's... dull.

But isn't that what you wanted, to make people laugh?

Well, isn't that what you're doing?

Look. I-I read the Variety reviews about the bit you did on the Skelton show,

and they said you broke up the joint.

I broke up the joint. You wanna know what I did?

I put on my hat, walked on-camera.

I took off my hat.

They screamed all over the place.

I finished my routine. I put back on my hat. I walked off. That's it.

Big deal. I took off my hat.

It's a wonder Skelton didn't fire his writers right on the spot.

I mean, he's the guy who works months to work on a little piece of business...

in a hope that it'll pay off in a couple of chuckles.

And I walk on, take off my hat, and they scream.

I mean, I haven't heard such laughs since they pushed me off the dock.

- So? - Jules.

Don't you understand? I'm bored.

I used to have to work for it. No, fight for it.

And now it's all...

Dullsville, USA.

What do you want?

I mean, you all the time wanted to make people laugh.

Well, look. Now it's happening.

I mean, what else is there?

A comic wants to get laughs.

There's gotta be something more. There's gotta be more to it than that.

Anybody can get laughs.

A dum-dum takes a pratfall. A fat kid gets pushed off the dock.

Hardy-har-har. Big deal!

Look at this, man. I got... I got a telegram. Look at these telegrams.

I got... I got offers. I got deals. I got guarantees.

But to be what? A rum-dum baggy pants schnook. Look here.

♪♪

Look at this.

Well, who's David Garrick?

Julie, get outta the tent shows. Forget the carnivals.

You wanna manage donnickers and ragbag operators all your life?

This is legit. This is Broadway.

"We'd like to discuss with you the possibility

of your playing a straight dramatic role...

in play I have under option."

Julie, you dig it? A straight dramatic role.

Jackie Slater, an actor.

Now look, booby. You never did no acting.

You were never a straight man. You are a comic.

Was a comic. Was a clown.

Was a dolt, was a dunce, was a klutz.

No more, understand? An actor... Jackie Slater.

No, make that Jack Slater.

No, John Slater.

No... Jonathan Slater.

For the best actor in a starring role...

The envelope, please.

The winner...

Jonathan Slater.

All right, Mr. Slater. I'd like your reading now.

Page one. Of act two. From the top.

Oh. Now just keep in mind that you're a circus clown.

You've just discovered that your wife has left you.

In fact, you've just read the note.

And at this moment, there isn't a single thing in the world that you wanna live for.

Yeah, I got it. I got it. Right.

Oh, uh, Miss Wilson. Would you read the girl acrobat, please?

What's the matter, Bimbo? You look odd.

Sure, odd. I'm a clown.

A clown's supposed to look odd.

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the big top.

My life just got dissolved.

Clown isn't supposed to cry!

He's supposed to laugh.

But the smiles...

are just painted on.

I-I'm sorry, Mr. Garrick, but the guy's a comic.

No matter what he reads, it comes out like a gag.

I thought he had what we needed. Something... Something in his face.

Face, gestures, everything. He's strictly for laughs.

Look at him.

Just look at him.

Okay, I made a mistake. Shake his hand, pat him on the back and get him out of here.

You wanna know what you are?

You're a bunch of dirty, rotten, insensitive people.

That's what you are.

You're the kind... the kind who pushed me off the dock.

"Pushed him off the dock."

As must be obvious, yefendi, miracles are not without risks.

Unforeseen little addenda.

"Unforeseen little addenda"?

Thanks to you, I can't say "How are you? Good

morning. A glass of orange juice, please"...

without people breaking up in screaming convulsions.

It was as you wished, yefendi.

Well, I don't wish it anymore. Understand?

I want you to fix it so that I never have anybody laugh at me again.

Yefendi, there is an unwritten law:

One miracle to a customer.

I don't care, you second-rate swami. I want another miracle.

I want you to fix it so that I can touch people, move them.

Make 'em cry, not laugh.

You get that? And I want it done now.

Because if you don't, what's left of you...

will be able to be stuffed in that moth-eaten turban

and dumped in a doggie bag.

It is done.

"Done." Done.

You'll never again be laughed at, yefendi. Never ever.

Well, we'll just see. We'll just see.

Hey, lady' Hey! Hey, lady'

Hey, lady, did you hear the one about the two Arabs...

who met on a streetcar, while the first one...

Now try to keep calm. I just told you, we've already called the police.

They're on their way here now.

♪♪

I wonder if I'll ever get the hang of this.

Our second painting this evening has to do with the stalker and the victim.

The hunter and the hunted.

That rare breed of Homo sapien whose love of

butchery is not a sport but a consuming passion.

Offered to you now, Clean Kills and Other Trophies.

I call this my trophy room, Mr. Pierce.

Oh, I'll take care of that, Tom. Very good, sir.

Tom here's an Ibo.

He's the son of a tribal chief.

He's a highly educated young man.

His father sent him to school in England.

Will that be all, sir? That'll be all. Thank you, Tom.

Excuse me, gentlemen.

Quite a specimen, isn't he?

Specimen?

He's an African, Mr. Pierce. Don't be misled

by the Oxford accent or the tailored clothes.

For all the outward accoutrements of civilization,

he's never left the jungle.

He still carries amulets and fervently believes in black magic.

A pagan savage, Mr. Pierce, like all his breed.

About the trust fund, Colonel. I'll only require your signature.

I've made all the arrangements for the money to go to the beneficiary.

Plenty of time, Mr. Pierce.

Plenty of time for Archie's inheritance.

Do you know anything of hunting, Mr. Pierce? Or guns?

I'm afraid not, sir.

- That's your hobby, my father said. - Hobby?

Hardly a hobby.

It's what I do with my life.

I don't think there's any game in the world that I haven't stalked.

Stalked and killed.

This, uh, baby here is a... a Thompson gazelle.

I got him in the Nyeri Forest.

Those horns are 16 and three-quarter inches long.

It's mentioned in Ward's Records of Big Game.

I understand you just graduated college, Arch.

Yes, his sole, remarkable achievement to date.

That is, if you don't give points for excessive brandy consumption.

This might interest you, Pierce.

That chap gave me big trouble.

I got him on a rainy night. Lions are temperamental beasts.

They're subject to moods.

Rainy weather makes them nervous.

But darkness stimulates them.

They hunt at night, and I hunted him at night.

One other trouble about lions is that they can see in the dark.

So, for openers, he had all the advantage...

Rain, night...

and his uncanny sense of smell.

All the advantages, Colonel, except a gun.

A lion on a charge can run 40 miles an hour, Pierce.

If you haven't got a gun or a marksman's eye,

he can spread you over the map of Africa.

Do you hunt, Arch?

Archie hunt?

Does that look like a hunter, Pierce?

Can you picture that dish of jellied consommé squaring off to a wild animal?

No, Archie does little but occupy space.

Hunting requires traits of character that he fails to possess.

Not the least being guts.

But not everyone goes in for hunting, Colonel.

I am not concerned with everyone.

I'm concerned with that pallid handwringer over there,

who would take his inheritance and give it to one of his myriad causes...

Senegalese unwed mothers,

pickaninny's free lunch program.

Or perhaps something dearer to his heart and character...

The Women's Liberation Movement.

My father would prefer that I do a little random killing.

Why not? Man has been killing for a million years.

And man is not the only animal in the jungle.

If we don't kill others, they'll kill us.

That's the equation of survival.

What if you both survive? Do you hear that, Archie?

You have a colleague, a kindred soul.

And do you think that is wrong to kill something like that?

If it's done unnecessarily.

"If it's done unnecessarily."

So the criterion of cruelty is not the act but the motive.

There is a certain tribe in Africa called the Masai, Pierce.

Every now and then,

they pick out some of their less active senior citizens...

and put them out in the bush so the hyenas can eat them alive.

Didn't Adam Smith have some theory about overpopulation?

The painted savages don't need fancy economists...

to tell them how to keep the population down.

They act upon instinct. The instinct of survival.

I suppose you would call that cruel, would you?

I'd call it savage, uncivilized.

But at least it's death with some purpose.

I kill with a purpose.

And my purpose is to prove that I am superior to what I kill.

Archie?

A point of information.

Mr. Pierce has a briefcase with some papers in it for me to sign.

There's a couple of million dollars worth of securities,

stocks and bonds waiting for you.

Are you aware of that? I'm quite aware of that.

Oh, he's quite aware of that.

And are you aware that you will be a millionaire...

in a few weeks? Yes.

And are you aware that it only requires my signature?

I'll, uh, just get my briefcase.

That will not be necessary. I know the contents of that briefcase.

I know the nature of those securities...

Their number, their names, their current values.

I want to make a codicil.

A codicil? Correct.

If within 15 days, my son has not killed himself an animal,

I wish to dissolve the trust.

Are you aware of the condition I have just imposed?

I wish you to kill an animal... by yourself.

With a gun.

Exhibit "A," Mr. Pierce.

The illustrious heir having just been given due notice...

that his father has arbitrarily diddled him of what is his,

does nothing but stand there and suffer.

Colonel...

By rights, he should by now have been rifle-butting me into oblivion.

But that is not Archie's breed. He has no aptitude for violence.

He's been taken on trips through the jungle,

to hunting preserves, the African velt...

Places which most boys would welcome as high adventure.

But whenever a gun was fired, I found him cowering under a bush.

Sir, none of this is my business.

I'm here for a specific reason,

to handle the reversion of the trust fund.

That's all I'm supposed to do.

As to any disagreement you may have with your son...

As to any disagreement between me and my son,

that is very much your business, Mr. Pierce,

because it relates to the trust.

I am not going to hand a gravy bowl over to

this simpering vegetable who has dishonored me.

I'm afraid you don't have any choice in that matter.

I could refuse to sign.

That would be most unwise, sir.

You've been paying fiduciary taxes on...

Don't give me that fiduciary nonsense.

- What could he do to me? - He could sue you.

Sue me?

This vegetable get a battery of lawyers and sue me?

He could start proceedings in the morning in a court of law.

That would be my advice to him.

And my advice to you, Mr. Pierce, is to go to bed and get some sleep.

Because tomorrow, Archie and I are hunting deer.

And my son is going to fire a gun...

for the first time in his miserable life.

Because if he doesn't,

I'll take every security in that trust fund...

and I will drivel it away on every high-risk venture...

that I can find in either market.

By Wednesday morning, I will turn that two million dollars into wastepaper.

Father! Is it really so incomprehensible to you...

that I can't kill anything?

How about an animal?

Come on. M-Maybe a child.

How about any living thing?

You answer me!

It is incomprehensible to me that I have managed to sire...

mauling, sniveling, self-indulgent milksop,

who is unable to grasp the most elementary fact of life:

The whole world is a bloody hunting jungle.

You stalk with the hunter, or you run with the quarry.

You have no other choice. The beasts have no choice.

Only man. That is why he is superior.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Not superior, j-just deadlier.

You take away his gun, and he's a beast.

You are currently in possession of a gun, Archie,

a bolt-action .458, which could make a hole in me the size of two fists.

What are you waiting for?

Nothing.

Send him off to bed, Tom.

Leave the door open and a light in the hall.

I imagine darkness frightens him too.

Archie, listen to me.

You don't have to kill a deer...

or swat a fly or step on an ant if you don't want to.

You don't have to do anything.

All you have to do is sign your name.

Naturally, since we represent your father, we couldn't take the case,

but I'll send you to a first-rate law firm.

By tomorrow lunchtime,

they can get a court order impounding the trust.

Do you think he's different?

Do you think he's a special case?

Mm-mm.

He's 20th-century man.

That's his big passion, to... to commit murder...

under the protection of a... Of a state-issued hunting license.

Why, I know he's a whole lot closer to the norm than I'll ever be.

And tomorrow...

Tomorrow...

I will try to shoot a deer.

That's the only choice I've got.

That's the only choice he's given me.

It is not the trust, Mr. Pierce.

It has nothing to do with that.

You know, a moment ago,

I almost killed him.

And I would have, because it was in my heart.

But Tom...

Well, thank God for Tom.

Anyway, better a-a deer than a... than a patricide.

Wouldn't you say that, Mr. Pierce?

Judging by your expression, I guess you wouldn't.

I'm okay now, Tom. I'm... I'm okay. Good night.

Had you never met Colonel Dittman before?

No. My father's been his lawyer for years, but I know very little about him.

He has a strange god, Mr. Pierce.

He... He worships death, and then he nails it to the wall.

And yet you came here with him and you've stayed.

For the boy. That is why I came.

And that is why I stay.

A legacy of 50 years, Mr. Pierce.

Bullet holes, punctured bodies, chopped-off heads.

A convocation of victims.

And now he wants to add his son.

Another trophy of the kill.

This rain is a gift, Tom. Excellent for tomorrow's hunting.

I am speaking to you.

Why will you make him kill tomorrow?

You have had 21 years without it. Why tomorrow?

It's my last chance.

I want to give him his manhood. Can't you understand that?

That is what you will strip him of if you give him a gun...

and make him use it.

If you had refused to hunt, what would your father have done?

We hunt for food.

We hunt to stay alive.

I was never taught to kill for pleasure.

The day I can kill without pleasure,

my son can have everything I own.

If you're praying to your gods, pray that the rain quits before dawn.

Then the deer will come out and enjoy the good weather.

That is not what I pray for.

Keep your eye on the canyons over there.

The whitetails don't like the wind.

We'll be out of their scent up here.

When you see the deer, Archie, line up the forelegs.

Place your shot so as to kill or anchor him at one.

Line up the upright part of the "T" with the back crossbar.

Aim to break the shoulder just above the middle of the body.

That way you'll bring him down quick.

If you aim high, you'll break his back.

A low shot can hit his heart. But if you're high and in front, you get the neck.

So make a clean kill, Archie.

Look. He's yours.

Take it slowly. Aim carefully.

Just squeeze it off.

Squeeze it, Archie.

Squeeze it.

Remember, just above the middle of the body.

How you lined it up.

What are you waiting for?

He's not going to stay there all day, damn it. Take your shot!

Take your shot, damn it. Take your shot!

I told you a clean kill.

Now we've got to follow his tracks.

We've got to check the blood marks,

find out where you did hit him.

You want to butcher an animal, I could have ordered one.

I could have tied him down and let you get at him with an ax.

It's the same bloody thing.

I could have predicted it.

We tracked for three and a half hours because the great white hunter,

sneaking up the stairs, hit him in the lungs.

But he did get a deer.

In the lungs.

When I saw the blood, I knew we had a long hunt.

He tried. Heaven knows he tried.

That's supposed to make me proud?

You've got nothing to be proud of.

Not a damn thing.

Open a window, will you, Tom?

It's hot in here.

Much too hot.

My head...

My head is burning up.

Didn't you hear me?

Why do you stand there?

My head. Something's happening.

My dear God, my head.

You're leaving, Mr. Pierce?

Yes.

Look after him, Tom.

He shot himself a deer a few hours ago.

Just remind him that it was a deer and only that.

And make him understand that he wasn't the executioner.

It was his father.

Why, his father has been punished, Mr. Pierce.

Punished?

Properly and befitting the crime.

Where is he?

The colonel? In there.

Best not go in there, Mr. Pierce.

Why not? Sometimes the punishment is as ugly as the crime.

Last night I prayed to my gods, Mr. Pierce.

It was the only thing left to do.

What did you pray for, Tom?

That the hunter should know what it is like to be the victim.

Best go now, Mr. Pierce. Take the boy with you.

How? How could...

There are gods, Mr. Pierce.

Gods of the bush, of the Congo, of the rain forests.

And with them, vengeance is an art.

Let's go. We're getting out of here.

What about my father?

Don't worry about him. He's in good company.

Now there is a trophy.

The king of the jungle.