Plot Synopsis (continued)
The district attorney R. Frank Marlowe (Raymond Burr,
who later went on to star as the famed Perry Mason in a long-running,
popular TV show) and authorities drag the lake for the drowning victim's
mysterious companion, but the boatkeeper has his doubts:
You can drag that lake until you're blue in the
face and you won't find him....well, I figure he left here in an
auto. When I went up to my cabin last night, around supper time,
there was a little old coupe parked off in the woods up there apiece.
Now about, uh, nine o'clock, somebody started up that auto and
drove it off awfully fast.
Back at the Vickers' home, Angela's clean-cut friends
greet Hawaiian-shirted George with an insightful joke: "Hey
George, where ya been? Got another woman stashed around someplace?" With
the prospects of marrying Angela clearly shattered with this new
catastrophe, George knows his time is short and he must find some
privacy and confess to Angela, but her friends won't let them cruise
away in a speedboat without joining them. A portable radio resting
on the dock broadcasts news of the investigation, but it is momentarily
drowned out by the roar of watercraft engines: "...the district
attorney Frank Marlowe's officers to investigate further. Less than
an hour ago, the coroner and all the press...marks and bruises on
her face and chin would indicate a struggle took place. The district
attorney meanwhile is believed to have evidence that the girl's male
companion may still be alive. Three Boy Scouts have reported that
he got mad...physical upset...."
And newspaper reports about the "drowning over
at Loon" appear to "build it up into a murder case." One
of Angela's girlfriends named Francis, who may have "read too
many murder mysteries," remarks: "The odds are the fella's
still alive and he's drowned her." Mr. Vickers summons George
into his presence in the living room for a little "personal" chat
before dinner - not about the breaking news story but about his dubious
marriage prospects. Angela hovers on the back patio behind them,
and then sneaks in to listen:
Mr. Vickers: It's about you and Angela. There's talk
going around about you getting married. Right now, I don't know
whether I'm for you or against you. I don't know you well enough.
George: I know how you feel, Mr. Vickers. Who am I to think of marrying
Angela? Angela has everything.
Mr. Vickers: The talk of marriage aside, the fact is that we know
almost nothing about your background.
George: There's not much to know, but what there is I wanted to tell
you myself. We, my family is - we are very poor people. My family
devoted their lives to a kind of religious work conducting sidewalk
services and street singing. I was part, part of all that until the
law came along and said I - I ought to go to school. I only went
to school until I was thirteen years old. You see, we didn't never
have any, any money for anything so I left home. I was going to do
something about it. I took any kind of job I could get. I was bus
boy, elevator operator, caddy, I had no training, no, no education.
Then I came here and went to work for my uncle. That's my background,
Mr. Vickers. There's not very much there to recommend any approval.
But I love Angela more than anything in the world. I'd do anything
to make her happy. If it's right that I shouldn't see her anymore...?
(Angela appears stunned)
Mr. Vickers: Easy boy. Forthrightness is a prime virtue. Let me tell
you, I admire your frankness.
Angela: (speaking up and startling her father) I should apologize
for eaves-dropping. I'm glad I listened. Well Dad, does that answer
all your questions?
Mr. Vickers: All I ask is that you two don't do anything hasty. (He
exits)
George: Let's get out somewhere.
Angela: We'll go for a drive.
George: I want to be alone with you, that's all I want.
They drive to a secluded spot - a dissolve to postmarked
letters addressed to Alice Tripp being dropped on her bed reveal
that investigators are interrogating Alice's landlady Mrs. Roberts
about whether her tenant had any boyfriends - she divulges that the "sweet,
quiet girl" said her most recent friend "was an Eastman
- oh, but it couldn't be, not one of the Eastmans!" A motorcycle
policeman (Mike Mahoney) trails the speeding convertible carrying
Angela and George, and finds them "safe and sound" on a
side road where they have hidden away. She is given a speeding ticket
for the "third time this summer." After the cop pulls away,
George seeks shelter from the world in her embrace as they share
one of their last conversations together:
Angela: Darling, what is it?
George: I'm tired. I'm tired.
Angela: Yes, you must be.
George: Darling, let's never leave this place. Let's just stay here
alone.
Angela: Don't let father upset you. I'm the one who counts.
George: You're the only one. The only one. People are gonna, they're
gonna say things, I know it. Things about me, about me, I know. It's
gonna make you stop loving me.
Angela (cradling his head in her arms): Shhh, don't talk like that.
(The sounds of sirens are heard in the background. He naps and mumbles)
George: I was asleep.
Angela: You were dreaming. You were talking. You said, 'Not my fault.'
And then you said something I couldn't make out. And then you said,
'Angela, don't hate me.' That was a bad dream, George, a false dream,
because I'll always love you. (They hug each other) We'd better go
now. Mother's liable to send out a posse for us.
Ominously, there are police cars parked in the Vickers
driveway when they pull in. When Angela parts from him at the door
after a lengthy goodbye kiss, she whispers:
Every time you leave me for a minute, it's like good-bye.
I like to believe it means you can't live without me.
As sirens sound, George flees into the woods from the
police and is quickly arrested and charged with Alice's murder and
taken to be locked up in the jail in Warsaw - he pleads "not
guilty" to the district attorney, R. Frank Marlowe. At the Vickers
home, Angela is questioned and denies any knowledge of George's relations
with Alice Tripp or the "double life" that George was leading.
Mr. Vickers hires a lawyer to defend him at the first-degree murder
trial, with the one stipulation that Angela's name will be kept out
of the case: "I'll engage the boy's lawyers and if it appears
he's innocent, I'll spend one hundred thousand dollars to defend
him...If he is guilty, I won't spend a single cent to save him from
the electric chair." From the shock of the revelation, Angela
faints dead-away onto her bedroom floor - reflected in her full-length
mirror.
George's hearing with his defense lawyers provides
some credible evidence:
"After I got her out on the lake, I couldn't go through with it.
Then the boat turned over," but their defendant appears pre-occupied
with thoughts of Angela. The D.A. Marlowe vehemently vows that "EASTMAN
WILL GET CHAIR,"
as part of his own personal quest for power: "Experts Predict
Conviction Will Speed Warsaw's Up-and-Coming District Attorney On His
Road to Capitol." Likewise, Angela is consumed by her feelings
for George, and reclines on a bed - watching flames destroy the newspapers'
reports of the case that have been forbidden to her. Months pass -
the Vickers vacate the summer lodge as fall winds and cold weather
approach.
In the criminal trial in the courtroom, Marlowe charges
that "George Eastman willfully and with malice and cruelty and
deception murdered and sought to conceal from the knowledge and justice
of the world the body of Alice Tripp. (To the jury) It will be for
you, ladies and gentlemen, to decide what should be done with this
man who has flouted every moral law, broken every commandment, who
has found his infamy - murder." There is overwhelming circumstantial
evidence in the trial brought against him by the prosecution's witnesses:
- A witness reports Alice's feelings for the defendant: "She
was in love with him. Everybody knew that."
- Mr. Whiting (William Murphy) of Eastman Industries
explains the 'no fraternization' rule
- Tripp's landlady recounts calling Alice to the telephone
to speak to George
- Dr. Wyeland describes Alice speaking to a "man
in a coupe" for a long time after leaving his office
- Eagle Scout camper (Robert Anderson) testifies that
at nine o'clock, Eastman stumbled over him after swimming to shore
- "his clothes were wet and he looked scared and shaky"
- The bus company employee/witness who had seen Eastman
and Tripp quarreling at the bus station testifies that "they
were quarreling and she said she wouldn't leave the depot unless
he promised"
- The coroner (John Ridgley) reports that prior to
her death by drowning,
"apparently the young woman had been struck by a dull instrument
with sufficient force to stun her"
- The boatkeeper, after telling George that the lake
was deserted, describes how the boat-renter signed a false name
- "he took the pencil and signed the name of Gilbert Edwards"
In the trial, George's defense attorney argues that
although his client wished to murder her, he didn't actually commit
the deed:
This boy is on trial for the act of murder - not
for the thought of murder. Between the idea and the deed there's
a world of difference. And if you find this boy guilty in desire
but not guilty in deed, then he must walk out of this courtroom
as free as you or I. However, since the prosecutor lacked evidence,
he's given you prejudice; lacking facts, he's given you fantasy.
Of all the witnesses he's paraded before you, not one actually
saw what happened. I will now call to the stand an eyewitness -
the only eyewitness - the only one who knows the truth, the whole
truth. George Eastman, will you please take the stand?
On the witness stand, George's testimony is unconvincing
and shaky as he recounts his thinking up until the moment the boat
capsized. He solemnly swears that he didn't strike Alice, didn't
throw her in to drown her, and that her death was an undesired fatal
accident, although he admits to not doing much to save her:
George: When we got to the lake, I suggested we go
rowing before it got dark.
Lawyer: Now tell me George, why did you give a false name to the
boatkeeper?
George: We were going to spend the night at the lodge. And we weren't
married, so I thought it would be better if we didn't give our right
names.
Lawyer: Well, why at this time, did you engage the boat to row the
girl out onto the lake?
George: In the back of my mind was the thought of drowning her, but
I didn't want to think such things. I couldn't help myself, I couldn't.
Lawyer: So what happened after you rowed out onto the lake?
George: I knew then that I couldn't do it. I couldn't go through
with it.
Lawyer: And then, you had a change of heart.
Marlowe: I object. He's leading the witness.
Judge: Objection sustained. Counsel will refrain from leading the
witness.
Lawyer: Yes, your Honor. What happened then, George?
George: Oh, uh, it was when, uh, we decided to, we gotta get back
to the lodge. She started talking about, about our getting married
and what our life together would be like.
Lawyer: What was your reaction to that, to her talking that way?
George: She just looked at me. She knew it was hopeless. She accused
me of wishing she was dead.
Lawyer: Did you, George? Did you wish she were dead?
George: NO! I didn't! I wasn't thinking of that anymore.
Lawyer: What were you thinking of at that moment?
George (subdued): I was thinking of somebody else.
Lawyer: Another girl. You were thinking that this other girl and
her world were lost to you forever. What did you say to Alice's accusation?
George: I told her it wasn't true. I didn't want her to die.
Lawyer: Wasn't she alarmed, frightened?
George: She even said, 'Poor George!' Then she started toward me
from the back of the boat. I told her not to. I told her stay where
she was. But she didn't. She-she kept coming toward me and then she
stumbled and started to fall and I started to get up, and then everything
turned over, and in a second we were in the water. I was stunned.
Something must have hit me as I fell in. It all happened so fast,
I didn't know what I was doing.
Lawyer: George? Was Alice conscious when she fell into the water?
George: Yes, I could hear her scream. But I couldn't see her, because
she was on the other side of the boat. So I swam around to get to
the other side and she was - when I got there, she'd gone down. I
never saw her again.
Lawyer: Do you solemnly swear before God that you did not strike
Alice Tripp...
George: I do, I swear.
Lawyer: ...and that you did not throw her into that lake...
George: I did not.
Lawyer: ...and that it was an accident undesired by you.
George: I do. I do. I do.
As the trial proceeds, the fanatical district attorney
brutally and brilliantly cross-examines George and effectively destroys
his credibility:
Marlowe: Eastman, that night when you left that dinner
party at the house at Bride's Lake to meet Alice Tripp in the bus
station, do you remember leaving anything behind you?
George: No, I don't. I don't remember leaving anything.
Marlowe: I'm referring to your heart, Eastman. Did you leave that
behind you? Did you, Eastman? Out there on that terrace in the moonlight.
You left behind, didn't you, the girl you loved - and, with her,
your hopes, your ambitions, your dreams? Didn't you, Eastman? You
left behind everything in the world you ever wanted, including the
girl you loved. But you planned to return to it, didn't you, Eastman?
Answer me!
George: Yes.
Marlowe: Eastman? When you told them all that night that you were
going to visit your mother, you were lying, weren't you?
George: Yes.
Marlowe: When you gave the boatkeeper a false name, you were lying
again, weren't you?
George: Yes.
Marlowe: When you drove up to Loon Lake, what reason did you give
Alice Tripp for parking so far away from the lodge?
George: Because we were out of gas.
Marlowe: Weren't you lying again?
George: Yes.
Marlowe: Lies. Isn't it a fact that every move you made was built
on lies? Yet now, of course, when you're facing death in the electric
chair, suddenly you can't tell anything but the truth, is that what
you want the jury to believe?
George: All the same, it's true. (softly) I didn't kill her.
Marlowe: So you persist in lying about that, too.
The climax of the trial occurs when the rowboat is
brought into the courtroom and soul-searching Eastman (sitting in
the boat) has difficulty remembering and reconstructing the accident
when the boat overturned and Alice "fell sideways into the water...There
was a thud as if the edge of the boat came down and hit her on the
head." Marlowe thrusts away with derogatory accusations:
Why couldn't you swim toward her instead of away
from her?
When Eastman is asked to step out of the boat, his
foot snags on a coil of rope in the boat - suggesting that when he
tried to save Alice, his tangled foot prevented him from doing so.
[However, there was no rope that snagged his foot in the earlier
scene.] After he emerged from underwater, about fifteen or twenty
feet away from Alice, Marlowe insinuates that Eastman deliberately
didn't swim to save the girl:
You mean to tell me you couldn't swim this little
distance to this poor weak girl and buoy her up 'til you could
reach this boat just fifteen feet away. I'll tell you one thing,
you know, you know you're lying. She was drowning and you just
let her drown. She was sitting there defenseless in the back of
the boat and you picked up this oar like this, and you crashed
it down on that poor girl's head like this!
The D.A. dramatically smashes the rowboat oar across
the boat, implying that George struck Alice with it, or shoved her
down into the water with it, and made no effort to save her: "You
pushed that poor girl into the lake and watched her drown. Isn't
that the truth?" George cowers and murmurs: "No."
Not surprisingly, George is found guilty of first degree
murder by the jury and sentenced to death. He wires a telegram to
his mother with the bad news:
Hannah Eastman, Bethel Independent Mission, Kansas
City, Mo., Mother I am convicted, George.
His mother visits George in prison - her appeal to
the governor to stay his execution has been unsuccessful. With Rev.
Morrison (Paul H. Frees), she encourages George to boldly face death,
even though he is uncertain of his own guilt:
Hannah Eastman: Death is a little thing, George.
You mustn't be afraid of it. You must fear now only for your immortal
soul. Blessings on your soul, my son. You must make your peace
with God.
George: I don't believe I am guilty of all this. I don't know. I
wish I knew.
Hannah: If you are guilty, then I too am guilty. I must share your
guilt.
George: Oh, mama, don't blame yourself.
Reverend: You know, they say only God and ourselves know what our
sins and sorrows are. Perhaps in this case, only God knows. George,
perhaps you've hidden the full truth of this even from yourself.
George: I don't want to hide it. I want to know.
Reverend: George, there's one thing you've never told anyone, even
yourself. There's one point in your story that holds the answer you're
looking for.
George: Yes.
Reverend: When you were on the lake with that poor girl and the boat
capsized, and there was a moment when you might have saved her...
George: I wanted to save her, but I just couldn't.
Reverend: But whom were you thinking of, who were you thinking of
just at that moment? Were you thinking of Alice? Were you thinking
of the other girl? (George remains silent, unable to respond as he
searches for the answer. The Reverend states the implication of his
silence.) Then, in your heart, it was murder, George.
Hannah: God bless you, my boy. I'd forgive him if I failed him.
In the final scene, Angela, wearing black (with a white
collar), loyally and faithfully visits him in prison just before
his scheduled execution in the electric chair - she still clings
to her deep love for him. The condemned George confesses to himself
and to his beloved that he is existentially responsible for his pregnant
girlfriend's death:
Angela: I came to see you. I thought lots about you,
George - all the time. I went away to school to learn. I don't
think I learned very much. I love you, George. I wanted you to
know that. Well, I-I guess there's nothing more to say.
George: I know something now that I didn't know before. I am guilty
of a lot of things, most of what they say of me.
Angela: All the same, I'll go on loving you for as long as I live.
George: Love me for the time I have left. Then, forget me. (They
kiss one last time.)
Angela: Goodbye, George. (She half-turns away and then looks back)
Seems like we always spend the best part of our time just saying
goodbye.
At 5 o'clock, after the Reverend has read a final biblical
benediction, George is led to his execution past other death row
cells - prisoners bid him goodbye:
So long, kid. Hope you find a better world than this.
Goodbye, George. Be seeing you.
But an emotionally-paralyzed George makes no reply
- he takes to his death the superimposed image of dark-haired Angela
kissing him. |