Original subtitles

Has the message to do with some confidential information about a patient?

It has to do only with your husband.

In that case it doesn't matter whether I tell him about it or he tells me.

A relationship...

- A relationship of such mutual trust is heartwarming. - Thank you.

You understand that my presence here is a matter of duty...

not necessarily personal inclination.

You are well known as a man without personal inclinations.

Thank you.

- May I have a glass of water? - On the table. Help yourself.

- It's so beautifully arranged. - Just drinking some water won't hurt it.

You're extremely generous.

Mrs. Praetorius...

there have been for some time now...

persistent, but obviously unreliable rumors about your husband.

About women?

About the circumstances under which he has practiced medicine...

about his methods and certain events, both past and present.

Oh, that.

And, uh, in view of certain disclosures...

unfounded of course, which have come to light recently...

concerning both Dr. Praetorius and his most intimate associate.

My husband is intimate only with me.

The dean of our university...

has asked me to present to Dr. Praetorius...

a list of the charges that have been brought against him.

Who brought these charges?

Dean Brockwell invites your husband to disprove these charges.

In confidence, of course.

Should your husband be unwilling to accept this offer of a private hearing...

then the dean will have no recourse other than to summon Dr. Praetorius...

before a faculty committee...

for an open discussion of the charges in question.

They must be pretty serious. What are they?

- I'm not privileged to reveal them. - But you know what they are.

Unhappily, I do.

This must be a great strain on you, Professor.

The performance of one's duty in a profession...

founded upon such high standards of honor...

dignity, learning and ethics...

One thing you can be sure of... my husband isn't going to sneak into the dean's office...

to clear his name in private.

He'll drag those nasty, vicious rumors of yours right out into the open...

and get rid of them in the open where you've been spreading them!

Mrs. Praetorius, you're not being objective.

We are discussing my husband, not a kidney.

You are also leaping at conclusions.

All rumors need not necessarily be vicious and nasty. It depends upon the viewpoint.

I am pretty well committed to one particular viewpoint, Professor.

- Quite so. Well, I must be going. - [Door Opens]

I admire your courage and faith.

Most women would be perhaps... apprehensive.

- Most women are not married to my husband. - True.

Whatever he did, he did for good and sufficient reason...

even if it turns out he murdered somebody.

I have never had occasion to envy Dr. Praetorius.

May I say that I envy him you?

You have that right under the Constitution of the United States.

Will you show the professor to the door, Mr. Shunderson? He's leaving.

- Thank you for your hospitality. - Drop in any time.

Give this to the miracle man.

I'll take it to him.

[Praetorius] Beep.!

[Horn Tooting]

[Bell Dinging]

[Arthur] Beep-beep.

[Barker] Beep-beep-beep.

[Horn Tooting]

What was that?

Uh, darling?

- Professor Lionel Barker! - What happened?

"What happened?" Did your train leave on beep-beep or beep-beep-beep?

- [Barker] Beep-beep-beep. - Your signal was beep-beep.

- Arthur's signal was beep-beep. Mine was beep-beep-beep. - We'll soon find out about that.

It was beep-beep-beep... What a bloody mess.

And whose fault is it, my fine atomic friend?

You can't go around smashing everything you see. Everything isn't atoms.

- Yes, it is. - Not for smashing. Not in my house and not my train.

Deborah, get out of the way before Professor Barker smashes you.

- Darling... - Beep-beep-beep. Those were your orders.

- Arthur, what was your signal to dispatch your train? - Beep-beep.

[Barker] I told you so. Mine was beep-beep-beep.

- [Praetorius] Arthur, yours was beep-beep-beep. - Beep-beep.

- Beep-beep. - Beep-beep-beep.!

They're my trains and I'm the chief dispatcher.

Beep from you, beep-beep from you and beep-beep-beep from Arthur.

- What difference does it make? - Look at this disaster.

In case of disaster, the responsibility remains with the chief dispatcher.

And with a catastrophe like this, he either resigns or blows his brains out.

I refuse to be held accountable for the inability of two idiotic assistants...

to remember two simple signals.

- Noah, darling... - I consider your high-handed refusal to accept...

the testimony of two responsible men as worse than idiotic.

Under the circumstances, I consider it criminal.

Your signal was beep-beep-beep and you know it was beep-beep-beep!

- Noah! - Deborah, I'll leave it to you, but remember, you're my wife.

[All Shouting At Once]

[Door Closes]

[Crying]

Is this what you're crying about? Then what?

It's just that I love you so much and I went and put all those candles on that cake...

when you're really only nine years old.

According to this document, I am not the picture of childish innocence...

you imagine me to be.

- Do you want to read it? - No.

Do you want me to tell you about it?

Not if you think you shouldn't.

"Not if you think you shouldn't..."

is a phrase used exclusively by women who assume a man's guilt...

without having the guts to come out and say so.

Nothing could be less important to me than this whole business...

of rumors and charges against you.

That's my girl.

Just a minute.

Just from the type of men who attack you, anybody'd know you were innocent.

Anybody with half an eye.

You haven't done anything you shouldn't have, have you, Noah?

Many times, but not as a doctor. Don't let it worry you.

I won't.

- Noah? - Hmm?

Does it seem to you that I cry a lot?

Truthfully, darling, there's never been anything like it...

since the little Dutch boy took his finger out of the dike.

- He never took it out. That's what killed him. - Pompous know-it-all.

I never used to cry at all, you know.

If I bumped my head... something like that...

but now the least little thing that happens, I start to bawl.

Why do you suppose it is?

Why do you suppose it is?

I get upset so easily these days, and I used to be...

well, if anything, sort of calm, even placid about things.

- What did you say the name of that frog was? - What frog?

The one that gets pregnant in two hours.

The frog doesn't get pregnant, darling. It just shows certain indications.

Well, I'm beginning to show certain indications.

Anyway, I think I am.

I feel so silly talking to you about it.

No, no, I understand. It's the kind of thing you'd rather discuss with a doctor.

I don't pretend to be an expert about such things...

but I've always thought I was a fairly normal adult young lady...

who knew roughly what every fairly normal adult young lady should know.

Right now, I feel like a kind of idiot Elsie Dinsmore.

What seems to be your problem, Mrs. Praetorius?

I'm confused. I can't figure anything out. I'm all mixed up.

After all I've been through these past few weeks, I've got a right to be...

but not this mixed up, not this confused.

Married exactly two weeks and three days.

Noah, darling, forgive me for being little Nell from the country about this...

but is it possible that I could be having a baby already?

Little Nell, Elsie Dinsmore or Catherine the Great...

it is entirely possible.

Well, if it's possible, then you should be the first to know.

It is also probable. Do you mind?

Comes the dawn, I'll stand on that windowsill and crow.

Comes the dawn next December, you'll be walking the floor with it.

- Next September. - December, dear.

September.

Now you're getting mixed up. This is April.

- December. - September.

My dear Dr. Praetorius, unless they've changed the rules about how long it takes...

or unless there's a new way to count, I make it December.

There's nothing wrong with the way you're counting.

You're just not starting back far enough.

How can I possibly start any farther back than...

No.

Oh, no.

You're quite a noble character, aren't you?

I've never thought of myself as one particularly.

No, really. I've heard of doctors who were self-sacrificing and unselfish...

but apparently there's no limit to yours.

Deborah, you couldn't be more wrong.

Were you that afraid I'd kill myself?

- How afraid is "that afraid"? - Afraid enough to marry me to keep me from it.

Is it conceivable to you that I would?

It seems obvious, doesn't it?

You mean that as a doctor I was faced by a situation...

which I could only meet by marrying you... that I did it as a remedy.

Deborah, as you know...

I believe in using any form of therapy that will make people well.

But it would be impractical to make marrying my patients a standard form of treatment.

- Why did you marry me? - Because I was in love with you.

Is that why you came to the farm, to ask me to marry you?

No, not consciously at any rate.

Let's not mess with the unconscious right now.

We've got enough conscious trouble to worry about.

You fell in love all of a sudden, didn't you?

All of a sudden. I'm still falling.

Let me know when you hit bottom.

Any time within the next 30 or 40 years.

You came to the farm because you knew I was pregnant.

And then you met my father and my uncle...

and you understood why I tried to kill myself.

By that time, you were all mixed up in it because you told me that silly lie...

about the wrong frog.

And I was so obviously in love with you, it was all over me like a tattoo.

And so with no possible way out for anybody, all of a sudden you fell in love with me...

and that solved everything, and everybody lived happily ever after.

For two weeks and three days, that is...

until I found out that my baby isn't going to be yours.

Funny, this calls for tears, and I haven't got any.

I take it all back about my being normal and adult and a lady.

What makes you think it isn't going to be my baby?

Because it isn't. Because its father is someone you never even knew...

someone I can't even remember as well as I should.

All of which, however true, has nothing to do with our baby.

His interest in this world will begin as it does with all babies...

when suddenly, through no fault of his own...

he is rudely deprived of a warm, secure and well-fed existence...

which he has every reason to believe will go on forever, and finds himself upside-down...

being smacked on the backside.

- Are you going to love him? - Of course I am.

So am I, and we'll keep him warm and we'll feed him and make him feel secure again...

- and give him brothers to play with. - All boys, eh?

It's time you stopped thinking about yourself and started thinking about my baby.

- Noah, if you really suddenly fell in love with me... - No "if."

- Why? - I couldn't say why.

- Haven't you ever wondered? - Falling as fast as I am, I don't have time.

- A man as exact as you with a reason for everything? - Then I'll find it.

Any time in the next 30 or 40 years, I'll start wondering.

I won't be doing much else it looks like, except wondering...

about you and me, about you and the baby, me and my fine character.

- Are you feeling sorry for yourself? - I'm feeling sorry for you.

- Don't be. - I love you.

- Be that. - Forgive me.

- Shut up. - Love me.

#[Cello Playing "Happy Birthday"]

Dinner is served.

I have forbidden you to bring that disgusting echo chamber into my house.

- As your friend... - Why is it here? Am I not the master in my own house?

To provide for your wife some contact with the world of sensitivity...

- of which you have no knowledge. - Hear, hear.

# Happy birthday to you #

- # Happy birthday to me # - # Happy birthday to you #

# Happy birthday #

# Dear Noah #

#Happy birthday

# To you

## [Orchestra Tuning up]

Excuse me. Pardon me.

Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me.

- Lionel. - Oh. I'm late.

- The hearing must have started. Why aren't you there? - Not yet, but in a second.

Now, you mustn't be nervous. There's nothing to be worried about.

Just see to it that they get it over with quickly. Such nonsense.

May I? Thank you.

How dare they hold their silly investigation the same night as the concert.

- It's unforgivable. - It may be worse.

From what I hear, Professor Elwell and his gang insisted upon it.

They consider it unlikely that Noah will conduct if the hearing goes against him.

The reasons for it could then hardly be kept confidential.

The hearing will not go against him.

And besides, Noah would conduct on his way to be hanged.

I'm terribly sorry, gentleman, but unavoidable.

My apologies.

Well, now that we're all here, shall we begin?

It is my intention, gentlemen, to conduct this hearing informally.

Dr. Praetorius, wouldn't you like to sit closer?

Thank you. I prefer to remain as remote as possible.

I suggested it merely to avoid having our discussion take on the appearance of a trial.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness...

but I consider this trial to be a trial.

I have no intention of regarding an investigation of my methods and myself...

as a cozy little chat among friends.

- Hear, hear. - Professor Barker...

I will have to insist that no one speak without being recognized by the chair.

I am by nature a man who interrupts.

- However, I shall try. - Thank you.

Dr. Praetorius, may I suggest to begin with...

in order to avoid both the embarrassment and time involved in examination...

that you give of your own accord...

a pertinent account of your life and professional activities...

prior to your arrival in this city and this university.

I prefer to be questioned.

- Why? - Because I do not intend to tell things about myself...

of my own accord which are nobody's business but my own.

- They are the concern of the entire medical profession. - [Barker] Uh-uh-uh.

- Be recognized. - You too, Professor Barker.

Your objection is understandable, Dr. Praetorius.

Professor Elwell, you may begin your questioning.

My colleagues have appointed me to speak in their name.

I hope I may prove worthy of what is not only an honor but a grave responsibility.

Dr. Praetorius, will you stipulate and agree to abide by the verdict of this committee?

- I will do nothing of the kind. - Why not?

Because I don't know what the verdict will be.

The verdict will affect you seriously whether you agree to abide by it or not.

Then why ask idiotic questions to which you already know the answers?

One horse on you, Elwell.

Will you admit that in 1936...

you were a highly successful quack and miracle healer...

in a remote little village in the southern part of this state?

I will admit nothing of the kind.

- Where did you live in 1936? - In Goose Creek.

Would you describe Goose Creek as a thriving metropolis?

It is a remote little village in the southern part of this state.

Exactly. And, uh, what was your source of income in Goose Creek in 1936?

- My practice. - You practiced openly?

I was available to anyone at any time.

I mean to say, did you set up practice as a doctor of medicine?

When I came to Goose Creek, I had my degree as a doctor of medicine.

I did not, however, display my M.D. Upon my door.

Upon your shop door.

I beg your pardon, his shop door?

Isn't it true, Dr. Praetorius, that in that remote little village...

called Goose Creek you opened a butcher shop?

An honorable trade, if ever there was one.

In itself, unimpeachable. But what did you sell in your butcher shop?

Meat, at cost.

At cost? Without profit? Then how did you make your living?

I made sick people well.

Aha.

Mm-hmm. Why should that startle you? I still do.

Do you deny that at that time your patients were under the impression you were a butcher...

and not a doctor?

Do you prefer the impression given to their patients by so many of our colleagues...

that they are doctors and not butchers?

Bravo! Bravo!

Dr. Praetorius, won't you admit that your practice flourished in Goose Creek...

because you took advantage of the ignorance of its backward inhabitants...

of the pathetic willingness of those poor people to rely upon a belief...

in miraculous cure rather than scientific knowledge...

and because of the readiness with which so many people will prefer...

the glamourous quack to the licensed practitioner?

Despite your definition of a quack as someone who does not practice medicine...

according to your rules, Professor Elwell...

the fact remains that a quack is an unqualified person who pretends to be a doctor.

I was a licensed practitioner, and therefore, not a quack.

And as to the willingness of those so-called ignorant and backward people...

to rely upon the curative powers of faith and possibly miracles too...

I consider faith, properly injected into a patient...

as effective in maintaining life as adrenaline.

And a belief in miracles has been the difference between living and dying...

as often as any surgeon's scalpel.

- That is not the issue under discussion. - It is precisely the issue!

Whether the practice of medicine should become more intimately involved...

with the human beings it treats...

or whether it's to go on in this present way of becoming...

more and more a thing of pills, serums and knives...

until eventually we shall undoubtedly evolve an electronic doctor.

The issue at hand is simply that you amassed a fortune by treating sick people...

who believed that you were a miracle-working butcher.

I could not have amassed that fortune...

unless I had made an enormous number of sick people well!

All this folderol, as I see it...

has got nothing to do with the ethics and honor of our profession.

It has everything to do with envy of one man's genius for healing the sick...

ofhis use of remedies you can't prescribe, buy in bottles or apply with a knife.

Call Praetorius a psychiatrist, high priest...

voodoo, medicine man, witch doctor, anything you like...

but don't investigate him, gentlemen, learn from him.

Professor Barker, it was understood you would not interrupt.

I'm sorry.

You can strike my remarks from the record.

I'm sure you all agree with me anyway, so why don't we call this silly thing off...

and start the concert.

It would interest me, Dr. Praetorius...

to know why you ever left this lucrative practice in Goose Creek...

and under what circumstances.

I'd always intended to leave when I'd acquired enough money to start a clinic of my own.

As it turned out, I left a little sooner than I'd planned.

I fired my housekeeper. She was falsifying my grocery bills...

and splitting the money with the grocer.

Unfortunately, she had previously discovered...

my medical diploma in a bottom drawer of my desk.

In revenge for being fired, she let it be known around Goose Creek...

that I was not a butcher at all, but a licensed M.D.

I was confronted by a crowd of angry townspeople and forced to admit the truth.

I narrowly escaped being run out of town on a rail.

Any more questions, Professor Elwell?

A great many more. Thank you.

[Crowd Chattering]

Shh.! Shh.!

- Professor Barker. - May I point out that these monkeyshines...

are seriously delaying the concert of our student orchestra?

Our concern here is the future good and welfare of our students...

as doctors of medicine, not as troubadours.

- Were you recognized? - We're all concerned about the delay of the concert.

The fact that this hearing conflicts with it is a most unfortunate coincidence.

You don't believe that any more than I do.

Continue, Professor Elwell.

- Dr. Praetorius. - I thought you'd forgotten me.

Who is Shunderson?

I take it you mean Mr. Shunderson.

Mr. Shunderson is my friend.

Is he associated with you professionally?

Not as a professional. He helps at whatever he can.

He is also employed in your home as a manservant or a butler, is he not?

I do not employ him at all. He works at whatever he pleases...

where he pleases and when.

He is never very far from your side or for long it seems.

- Really? - Dr. Praetorius...

what was Mr. Shunderson before you knew him?

I refuse to answer that question.

What were the circumstances under which you made his acquaintance?

I refuse to answer that question.

You have always evidenced a remarkable tolerance for this strange and mysterious man.

His qualifications have been questioned.

His blundering and slow-wittedness have caused complaint...

and yet you have protected him at all times to the fullest extent of your authority.

His qualifications concern no one but me...

since his responsibility is to no one but me.

As to his so-called blundering and so-called slow-wittedness...

perhaps I overlook them because I know the reason for them.

And is the reason of so delicate a nature that you cannot divulge it even here?

I have no right to divulge it anywhere.

May I suggest to you then, Dr. Praetorius...

that your refusal to divulge it is not out of loyalty to Mr. Shunderson...

but is due to some unsavory and dishonorable coercion upon you...

because the reason, which has been so delicately characterized here...

has to do simply with Mr. Shunderson having been a convicted murderer!

[Knocking]

What are you doing here?

I was listening through the door.

I protest against this highly irregular, unethical...

and probably prearranged eavesdropping.

Elwell, you can use more words more unpleasantly...

than any irritating little pip-squeak I've ever known.

Gentlemen, I suggest we leave the saloon floor...

and return to a more academic level of behavior.

I want to tell my story. He'll never tell it.

But what you want to know about me has nothing to do with him.

Well, let's hear it, by all means.

- Okay? - Certainly, Mr. Shunderson.

Okay?

I'm not a fancy talker. I... I don't know a lot of words.

That alone is a welcome relief.

[Clears Throat] Well, now, l...

Don't start with "Well, now."

Where... Where should I begin?

Tell them when you were condemned to death for murder.

- The first time? - Of course.

Well, the first time was in Canada...

in 1917.

It was Christmas. It wasn't a very merry Christmas.

Don't editorialize. Just tell the facts.

I had a sweetheart and a friend.

We were very close, the three of us. We went everywhere together.

Well, this one time we went mountain climbing.

My sweetheart couldn't climb very high...

so she stayed behind at a hotel while my friend and I went on.

We didn't get very far before we started to argue.

I don't remember what about. We always argued...

as friends do.

But this time he hit me with a rock.

So I hit him with one.

Not too much detail.

Anyway, we had a bloody fight...

and he ran away.

So, I went back to my sweetheart.

She was waiting in the lobby of the hotel.

She didn't even say hello.

She took one look at the blood on my clothes...

and saw that I was alone...

and started to scream, "Murderer, murderer!"

That was how I found out that my sweetheart...

and my friend were sweethearts.

Who saw to it that you were arrested and charged with murder?

Oh, my sweetheart, of course.

Her testimony and the blood on my clothes were enough.

I was found guilty of murdering my friend...

and I was condemned to death.

But because nobody could produce the corpse of my friend, living or dead...

my sentence was commuted to 15 years at hard labor.

And was the corpse of your friend never found?

I found it myself, after I served out...

my full 15 years at hard labor.

I found it accidentally.

I was walking past a restaurant in Toronto.

I happened to look in the window and there was the corpse of my friend...

sitting at a table eating a bowl of soup.

I think it was pea soup.

Immaterial and irrelevant.

Well, l... I went in and spoke to my friend...

in a very friendly fashion.

I asked him very nicely where he had been for 15 years...

and why he never admitted that I didn't kill him.

His answer, gentlemen, was unsatisfactory.

So I hit him in the face with the bowl of soup.

Then I hit him with a chair.

Somebody called a policeman. The policeman had a club.

I took the club away from him.

And it was with the policeman's club I finished up on my friend.

I tried to explain to the policeman...

that if I was committing a crime...

it was a crime for which I had already paid the penalty.

- He arrested me anyway. - You were released, of course.

No. I was tried for his murder again and sentenced to death again.

But how could you be tried twice for the murder of the same man?

The prosecutor insisted that this was not the same murder.

The first time no dead body was produced as evidence.

Well, the prosecutor was very fair about it.

He was willing to admit that my first conviction was probably a miscarriage of justice.

But even though the first jury made a mistake...

he said I didn't have the right to commit a murder...

just to correct that mistake.

He demanded the death penalty, and I was condemned to death.

But this time you were pardoned.

No. This time they didn't even commute my sentence.

You see, the fact that I killed my friend...

with a policeman's club made it a very serious crime.

Then will you tell us, Mr. Shunderson, how did you manage to escape?

- I didn't escape. - Well, what happened to get you out of it?

Nothing. I was executed.

- Executed? - This is absurd.

It was on the morning of the 29th of February...

1932...

a leap year.

It was a gray and rainy morning.

The hangman put the noose around my neck.

Then we had to wait because some official forgot his glasses.

They held an umbrella over me so I wouldn't get wet.

And then the official's glasses came.

He read something, a minister prayed...

I closed my eyes and thought of my mother...

the floor went out from under me and that was that.

I must protest against this fantastic...

and childish assault upon our intelligence.

You be quiet!

- Then what happened? - The next thing I felt...

was a finger with a rubber glove on it.

It was in my mouth pressing down on my tongue.

I bit it and somebody yelled.

I opened my eyes and...

that was the first time I saw Dr. Praetorius.

Only he wasn't a doctor then. Just a medical student.

I think I can make this next part of the story clear to you.

At the time all this happened, I was just finishing my studies as a medical student.

I was also keeping company, as they say...

with a young lady who happened to be the hangman's daughter.

Both the hangman and his daughter were generous and sympathetic.

The hangman in particular was sympathetic to my desire...

as a student of anatomy to have a cadaver of my own.

Knowing that Mr. Shunderson's body would go unclaimed...

because certainly no one was ever more alone in this world than poor Mr. Shunderson was...

the hangman managed to send it to me immediately after the hanging...

along with a sweet note from his daughter.

I was delighted, of course.

But not for long. I soon found out that Mr. Shunderson was still alive.

You must have been furious.

He told me his story.

We put some pig iron in the cheap wooden coffin that he'd arrived in...

and had it buried in a charity graveyard.

From that day on, he has never left me.

And I think it is understandable that from time to time...

he may seem a little confused...

and perhaps even a little dull-witted.

[Knocking]

I don't mean to intrude too much, gentlemen...

but I'm sure that by now you must have made up your minds.

Deborah, a wife simply does not come barging into a room...

when her husband is being investigated.

After all, if he's innocent, he's late for the concert.

And if he isn't, he'd better start conducting anyway...

because he may have to earn his living at it.

I'm of the opinion the hearing is at an end.

Do you agree, Professor Elwell?

The trouble with you is, Elwell, you've never had a cadaver of your own...

much less one that bit your finger.

[Dean Brockwell] And as for this incredible evening, gentlemen...

the sooner we can forget it, the better for all concerned.

And I think we've held up the concert far too long.

Professor Elwell, you're a little man. It's not that you're short.

You're little in the mind and in the heart.

Tonight you tried to make a man little whose boots you couldn't touch...

if you stood on tiptoe on top of the highest mountain in the world.

And as it turned out...

you're even littler than you were before.

## ["Academic Festival Overture"]

#[Continues]

# Gaudeamus igitur #

#Juvenes dum sumus #

# Gaudeamus igitur #

#Juvenes dum sumus #

# Post jucundam juventutem #

# Post molestam senectutem #

# Nos habebit #

# Humus #

# Nos habebit #

# Humus #

# Vivat academia #

# Vivant professores #

# Alma Mater floreat #

# Quae nos educavit #

# Vivat membrum quodlibet #

# Vivat membra quaelibet #

# Semper sint #

# In flore #

# Semper sint #

# In flore #

#[Harmonizing]