What Do You Think? (1937) | mystery | horror | Jacques Tourneur |

This story was first told in a house high on the hills overlooking Hollywood. A group of us were guests for tennis, but a late afternoon cloudburst drove us indoors. Darkness came, an eerie darkness, and a weird night. The group around the great fireplace drifted into the telling of ghost stories. There were a half-dozen of us, a prominent film director, a handsome young male star who makes all your little feminine hearts go pity-pat, one respectable gent who owns a bank, and three of us screenwriters. From ghost stories, it was but a step to the relation of those strange human experiences that cannot quite be explained with logic and reason. Finally, one man kicked the fire nervously. Let's call him Basil. Several years ago, Basil is saying, in Hollywood lived a young writer, John Doe, and spell it D-O-U-G-H, that kind of doe, since he's writing for the movie. Last night, John Doe had given his first Hollywood party. The guests played Murder Mystery, a game in which John invents a murder and all the others are prosecuting attorneys endeavoring to solve the crime. Can I talk to the coroner? Did you find any fingerprints? Who are you asking? Let me have the dead woman's husband. Did you discover the body? It was lying on the couch when I came home. I'll ask the butler. I'll bet he's the murderer. The butler says the woman's body looked as if she were asleep. Now can I have the coroner? Shut up, Sally. What does the coroner say was the cause of death? I want the husband. Was the body's hair disarranged? No, Sally hasn't asked the question. Give her a chance. I want the coroner. Now, coroner, why did you murder the dead woman? And so on until John suddenly remembers an important studio appointment next morning. As might be expected, through John's dreams, coroners and murderers and corpses had paraded in harrowing confusion. Come now, Johnny. Climb out of the Murder Mysteries and start thinking of studios and stories. Why, John, a cigarette the very minute you wake up? Of course, I do the same thing myself, but my doctor tells me it's very bad, causing falling hair, disappointed affections, and pockmarks in the lining of the stomach. It's a good thing your mother isn't here to see you smoking before breakfast. She spoiled you thoroughly, didn't she, Johnny? But I can just hear her saying mildly, you've been a good son, John. Never caused me a moment's anxiety. Yes, it is kind of strange living out here alone without Mom. Never been separated from her until three months ago when I left Chicago. But where's my ignition key? Must have left it on the dresser. I looked at Mom's picture and all I could think of was her homemade angel cake with chocolate icing. Wait a minute, save time. I've got an extra key right here in my key ring. I'm an efficient little fellow at that. Mom's training. What's that? I could have sworn I heard Mom call it. Mom saying, John, John, John. As clear as if she were right here. You fool, five hours sleep and you're still dreaming. Now what's the matter? That's the right key? Say, what goes on this morning? Shucks, I'll have to go back and get the other key. There's the key and if I'm late at the studio, Mom... What's that on my bed? Looks like a body. A woman's body. A dead body. My imagination's running riot this morning. But it's still there. I'm not dreaming this. It's disappearing. It's gone. Phew, I wonder if I'm losing my mind. First Mom's voice and a ghost on my bed. Good thing I'm not a drinking man. Better cut out that cigarette before breakfast. And better get to the studio. This key fits all right. I'm glad something's regular around here. And better calm down to 35 an hour. If I got pinched, Mom would have a fit. So be sensible, like that coupe with a woman driving. Not much traffic at this hour. Look at the size of that truck. But it's empty. There's no driver. The brakes have slipped. Lady, look out. Are you blind? Lady, lady, are you deaf? Lady, lady, look out. The truck's going to hit you. You'll be killed. Maybe I can do something. Do something? Do what? For in the brief minute it takes John to reach the scene, other nearer Samaritans have laid out a limp, dead body. But even as John looks, a sudden icy hand grips his spine. That woman, that body, is the all-too-real dead flesh of the vision John saw on his bed that morning. The ghost has become ghastly reality. What does it all mean? John is going to find out. But the superintendent at the service station is gratifyingly practical. Now look here, Mr. Doe. You bang that key around in your pocket until it got one tiny little nick in the wrong place. Just jam it in the lock several times. It'll work. You see? I wish you movie masterminds would use a little horse sense occasionally. Get along with you. You feel a little foolish, don't you, John? That's the curse of being a writer. You dramatize everything that happens to you. Now you're certainly foolish. Borrowing a stopwatch to time exactly how long you were delayed in leaving the house this morning. Rehearsing your every action. I'm ashamed of you, John. You're intelligent enough to know that the existence of psychic phenomena is not recognized by most authorities. Telepathy is believed to be merely another of the vast conglomeration of superstition which mankind has accumulated down through the ages. But if it'll make you feel any better, have it your own way. Go ahead. Reenact the whole incident. Think carefully now. Just what did you do and how long did it take you to do it? Let's see exactly how much time was consumed because you left your ignition key on the dresser. Then your hallucination. Right down to the instant the engine started. How long? Fifty-seven seconds. Now let's see. I was right about here when the truck hit the coupe. I was going about thirty-five to here. Right there it happened. Fifty-seven seconds. If I hadn't been delayed fifty-seven seconds at the house, that limp thing lying on the asphalt would have been me. It is a frightening thing when a bolt from the black clouds of the unknown crashes into the clear sunlight of reality. There must be some simple explanation of these, these coincidences. That's it, coincidences, says John to himself. I didn't get enough sleep. And when I saw the body lying on my bed, there it is again. This time it's sharper, but less detailed. Somehow it isn't so frightening this time. Why, it isn't frightening at all. It's only a shadow. This morning the bed wasn't made. The wrinkled bedclothes distorted the shadow, made me think I saw something that wasn't there at all. A shadow. That's a load off my mind, and am I glad. It kind of had me going for a while. And all the time it was nothing but the shadow of a cypress tree and the lamppost on the slope back of the house. There's the phone. Probably the studio wondering why I didn't come to work this morning. From Chicago, John's kid brother Leslie is calling. Are you all right, John? Of course John's all right. Why shouldn't he be all right? Well, hold the wire a minute. Leslie very obviously doesn't want someone to overhear the conversation. The someone is Mom. Listen, John. A funny thing happened this morning. I was just finishing breakfast. I thought Mom was asleep. Then suddenly I heard her calling you. I ran in. She just sat there bowed upright in bed saying, John, John, over and over again. She didn't seem to hear me when I spoke to her. Then she quieted down, sighed a little smile of relief and said, John was going to do something. But finally he heard me. He's all right now. Are you all right, John? Did anything happen this morning? No, nothing happened this morning. And John's perfectly all right. Fine, Johnny, old boy. Bye-bye. Take care of yourself. Goodbye, Leslie. No, nothing happened this morning, did it, John? But something very nearly happened. Or did it? Or didn't it? I wonder. For if the clumsy fingers of mortal man can concoct a contraption of metal and glass and wire that will pluck out of the thin air words which were tossed into the sky many miles away by a purely mechanical apparatus, why is it impossible to believe that the unfathomable machinery of a mother's love could send a message to such a delicately sensitive receiver as the brain of an adoring son? Did this really happen? Well, that's the story Basil told in the house on the hill. So, coincidence or telepathy? What do you think?