Original subtitles

I once knew a man called Cedric McWinnie

who was enormously greedy and was forever poking

about all over the house looking for stuff

to eat.

One day, and I'm not making this up,

he opened a cupboard in the dining room

and found a paper bag full of round

white things.

Cedric had a passion for peppermints so he

grabbed a handful and bunged them into his

mouth and started crunching them up.

Well, they happened to be mothballs and the

camper burned his tongue so badly he couldn't

eat for a week.

The storey you're going to see in a

few moments by one of the really great

short storey writers of our time, John Collier,

is about a couple of people who are

also rather greedy but in a different way.

On a nondescript street

in a town where nothing much ever happens,

the wheel of fortune is about to take

a rather unlikely spin.

Madame Myra.

Oh, there's got to be some mistake.

Let me get my checkbook.

All right, let me get that checkbook.

Okay, I got my book.

Now, let me see, I mailed that on,

I mailed that on Tuesday.

Yeah, you should have it now.

Yeah, Buster, I read the future, but I

don't know what the post office is going

to do.

Like I told you, I put it in

the mail.

Just one moment.

Coming.

Be patient.

Future will wait.

Just one moment.

Coming.

You tell fortunes?

Yes, I do see into the future.

Lady downstairs wouldn't take me.

I can't imagine why not.

Come on in.

And close the door behind you.

I'm new in town.

And you want me to tell you all

the terrific, wonderful things that are going to

happen to you, right?

I went to that lady downstairs, her sign

said all ages.

So I figured that I could learn how

to dance like Fred Astaire.

Because if I could, if I learn how

to dance like Fred Astaire, then I could

meet some babes.

And you want me to tell you if

you can learn how to dance like Fred

Astaire?

She already told me.

But she said you could, you could tell

me if there is any babes in my

future.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I could divine that for

you.

Come on over here.

You sit down in this chair right over

here.

Come on.

Gonna have to bring up a very coarse

subject here.

What's that?

Money.

Now it's five bucks for a quick glimpse

into the future, and it's ten bucks for

a long gaze forward.

What's the difference?

You want to know what's gonna happen next

week or next year?

So five dollars I get one week, and

ten dollars I get a whole year.

Well, I'm no dummy, I'll take a whole

year.

You'd be surprised, you're a lot more farsighted

than a lot of people.

No kidding.

Well, I got a small problem.

Yeah?

I don't have ten bucks.

Five.

I spent my last dime on the bus.

I knew in town, remember?

Out.

Wait a minute.

You got anything busted?

Busted?

That's right, busted.

Everybody's got something that's busted.

You know, and that's what I do.

I fix broken things.

Broken hearts?

That's pretty funny.

I mean, it's not ho-ho funny, but

he-he funny.

Busted.

I got this toaster over here.

It doesn't pop toast up anymore, and I

got that television set that went out on

me right in the middle of John Dean.

The Watergate guy?

Yeah.

Well?

Toaster.

You fix my toaster, I'll tell your fortune.

Ten dollar fortune?

Okay, ten dollar fortune.

Got a screwdriver?

All fixed.

See, that's what I do for a living.

I fix, uh, broken things.

I'm really impressed, Charlie.

Come here and sit down.

Let's see what the future holds.

Okay.

Cut.

Are you a real gipsy?

You bet I am.

Okay.

Hm.

Hm.

Okay, we have one of...

pretty good.

Well, what do you see?

What do you see?

You see a babe?

How about, uh, money?

I'll settle for money.

You have, uh, rich relative, oh, aunt, uncle,

anything like that?

Only relative I got is my uncle, Jake.

He's always telling me what he's gonna buy

me when his ship comes in.

I'm still waiting for it to dock.

Ah.

See these double eights here, Charlie?

They show that you're coming to a fork

in your life.

Now, if you take one path, it's going

to lead you to wealth, incredible wealth.

And if you take the other path, it's

gonna lead you to nothing.

How do I know which one to take?

Well, you see, you see this red king

right here?

That's the king of wealth.

Now, this red knave is his messenger.

You are gonna have a message soon, really

soon, about great wealth.

Wait a minute.

Let me try it again.

All right, let me try it again.

Try it again.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Okay.

Hey, wait.

These are exactly the way they were before.

Hey, don't, don't touch anything.

Ah.

It's too bad, Charlie.

I mean, you, you could have been a

very rich man.

What do you mean?

Well, you remember, remember the double eights right

here?

The two paths, one leading to wealth and

the other to nothing?

So just, just point me in the right

direction.

Well, you'd have to get married.

Married?

I don't know any babes.

Oh, this couldn't be just any babe.

Uh, this would have to be a woman

who had certain qualifications, certain specific things.

Such as?

Oh, this woman would have to have dark

hair.

Says it right here on the cards.

The cards demand it.

Dark eyes.

She'd have to be divorced.

She would use her hands to make a

living and the red queen demands that she

be an air sign.

That's a Gemini.

Says it right there.

So are you.

Wow.

Ah, Gemini.

Have you ever been married?

Divorced.

But that's not all.

The cards demand that the woman you marry

have a mark of fortune.

The mark of fortune?

This woman has to have three moles on

her left shoulder.

I'm in love.

You want me to do what?

Be my matron of honour.

You mean to tell me that you're going

to marry that, that, that rhinoceros?

Saturday.

It was a joke.

Myra, I sent him upstairs to you.

It was a bad joke.

Grace, you know how sometimes the cards work?

I mean, really work.

Honey, you can't marry him.

He's a, he's a minus zero.

A zilch.

They say that he's going to inherit a

lot of money from a close relative.

I mean, a lot of money, Grace.

A lot.

Honey, I don't care if he's going to

inherit a million dollars.

You're going to have to live with him.

You're going to have to let him, you

know what, you're going to have to let

him do.

Grace, that's not all.

I laid these cards twice for him and

each time they came up exactly the same.

I mean exactly.

Kidding.

The cards insist he's going to inherit all

this money from a close relative and then,

yeah, then what, what?

And then he's going to what, what?

Die.

Look at the instant replay on that one.

Starback comes back, hands off to the tailback,

and he gets racked up after a gain

of about a yard, but it should be

enough for a first down.

It is.

Now back to live action.

Starback, back to back.

He's sacked by the flipping linebacker.

Dr. Fong, please.

All right.

He's okay.

He's getting up slow, but he's going to

be okay.

Madam Myra.

Yes, Mrs. Norwood.

Yes, I can see you right away.

All right, I'll expect you in five minutes.

Hey, slob, out.

I got a client.

Game just started.

The game has always just started.

First it's basketball, then it's baseball, now it's

football.

What comes after football?

Starts all over again.

Oh, the big fixer.

The man who can fix anything.

You better get that short fixer or you're

going to get electrocuted.

The TV works okay.

It works better than those cards of yours.

You know what you're doing, fakeo?

You're selling lies.

Keeps you in beer.

It sure does.

Where's my money, huh?

Where's that million dollars I was supposed to

get?

Huh?

For marrying the girl with the dark eyes

and the mark of fortune?

I never said it was going to be

a million bucks.

For six months I've been waiting around here

for a phone, a ring, and a letter

to come, and it hasn't.

And now I know why.

Because it was a lie.

You lied to me just like you lied

to every other poor slob that walks up

in this place.

Okay, maybe I do lie to them, but

you know what makes them happy?

And I did not lie to you.

I never did.

I have a gift, and my cards still

say you are going to get that money.

Your cards are pieces of paper.

I was going to meet a babe.

A babe with a cute smile and go

to-hell eyes, and look what I got

stuck with.

Look what I got stuck with.

Look at yourself.

Out, Charlie.

You know what I got in my pocket?

Thirty-eight cents.

And where am I going to go on

thirty-eight cents?

I don't know, and I don't care.

I mean, out anywhere.

Why don't you go downstairs and see Grace?

She's got go-to-hell eyes.

Oh, maybe there's something she needs fixed.

You are Myra Lacey Downer?

No, she's upstairs.

What do you want to see her about?

You are?

I'm her husband.

Charles Richardson.

Yeah, that's right.

My name is Merrifield.

I'm an attorney, but my business is with

your wife, Mrs. Downer.

She's got an inheritance, a rather sizeable inheritance,

I might add.

Now, you don't mean her.

You mean me.

I mean nothing of the sort.

The person I need to see is Myra

Lacey Downer.

Now then, a few routine precautionary measures.

You are a mother's maiden name?

Geraldine Dorothy Johnson.

Right.

Some gipsy?

And do you have a copy of your

birth certificate?

Yes.

Yes, I do.

Here it is.

Right.

Well, everything seems to be in order.

You are who you say you are.

Now then, what a great aunt on your

mother's side.

You mean old Aunt Faith?

Faith Merritt Parkhouse.

She was a maiden lady, she taught school

for 48 years, and she invested wisely.

Very wisely, I should add.

She passed on three months ago in a

nursing home at the age of 92.

I used to write her Christmas cards, but

I stopped a long time ago.

I never thought...

How much?

I beg your pardon?

How much did the old lady leave?

That's really a matter for Mrs. Downer.

I'm her husband, Jack.

How much?

Well, that would all depend.

Most of her assets were in blue chip

stocks.

She bought IBM in 1932.

Uh, but if everything were liquidated, the estate

would bring in, after taxes and legal fees

of course, about $350,000.

$350,000.

Here's my card.

I'm the corresponding attorney for your late aunt's

attorneys on the coast.

If you'd like to come to my office

tomorrow about 10 o'clock, we can start

all the paperwork.

I'll be there.

$350,000.

Whoa.

Do you have a will, Mrs. Downer?

A will?

No, I haven't got a will.

Hey, what would I need a will for?

Well, you're a rich woman now.

If anything were to happen to you, everything

would of course go to your husband, but

you might like to think about that.

Yeah, I'll do that.

I'll think about it.

I'll let myself out.

Why aren't you watching your game, Charlie?

Uh, I was thinking of going down and

digging your fish pond.

Ha, it's a little late for that, Charlie.

Oh, what do you mean?

I'm leaving you, Charlie, but I am leaving

you all this.

You're not leaving me.

Think again.

I get half.

Half the money's mine.

You'll have to find me.

Don't worry about it, Charlie.

The cards still say that you're going to

be very, very rich.

They do, huh?

Maybe the cards will turn out to be

right after all.

I'm going to go down and work on

your fish pond.

It's raining.

Oh, that's all right.

Fish don't mind.

I told him I was leaving him.

Now that is good news.

That is very good news.

Did he make a fuss?

He went out to dig the fish pond.

In the rain?

Mm-hmm.

You know, while we were talking or arguing,

I don't know, whatever it is we were

doing, I dealt the cards for him again,

and they still say that he is going

to be rich.

And?

And then he's going to die.

The lord and master.

He still expects you to cook?

Who knows what Charlie expects.

Oh, Charlie, what are you, the abominable mud

man?

It's cards, baby.

Would you go drip in the bathroom, please,

huh?

All right, what about the cards?

They're right after all.

Look.

Yeah, you found a dollar bill in the

mud, Charlie.

That's wonderful.

It's not a dollar.

It's a fifty.

Yeah.

Hey, you're right, Charlie.

You're rich.

Cheers.

Mud in your eye.

Myra, I wasn't alone.

It wasn't all by itself.

What do you mean?

I got out to dig the pond, right?

Yeah.

All of a sudden, I hit something with

my shovel.

I thought it was a rock.

But when I hit it again, it sounded

more like tin.

So I got down on my knees in

the mud, and I started to dig it

out.

Dig what out?

Yeah, see, there's a tin box.

Or maybe it was steel.

I don't know.

But it had a lock on it.

And so I hit the lock with a

shovel, and it wouldn't open.

So then I hit it again, and I

hit it again, and I hit it again.

And finally it opened.

And it opened, and inside was a whole

bunch of fifty dollar bills.

Hundreds of fifty dollar bills.

The cards were right.

The cards were right.

I'm rich.

So are you.

I knew it.

Hey, where's the box?

Where is it?

Outside.

Outside?

Well, go bring it in, Charlie.

No, see, we're going to go out and

bury it again.

We'll keep it for our nest egg.

I mean, if we bring it inside, then

we just got to pay taxes on it.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Are you sure you want to bury it

again?

Yeah.

Yeah, and I want you to know exactly

where I bury it.

In case anything ever happens to me.

Oh, gee, Charlie.

That is really decent of you.

I'll tell you, I never dreamed when I

started digging this pond for you it was

going to lead me to all this money.

Where is it?

The egg is right there.

I don't see it.

Well, you got to bend down a little

bit and look.

Where?

Right there.

You know what?

I stayed a little bit here, and I

stayed a little bit there, and that's the

fifty bucks.

And you know what else?

Your cards were right.

You know what?

I'm going to get all my money from

my rich relative.

Guess who?

I found a million dollar baby at the

fine and ten cent store.

He breaks it over the left side.

It's a good luck.

He's over the 40.