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THE CREAM OF CROSBY
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alarming trick of fate happen to be playing "Othello." His suspicions (quite baseless) about his wife's relations with the juvenile are at white heat when he steps on stage for the strangling scene. His hands are around her throat when she screams and drops dead. No, he didn't strangle her, Inspector McGillicuddy tells us. She was shot by the lady playing Iago's wife who has long coveted the top role. There ought to be a round dozen backstage murders, only about half of them, I should guess in the middle of "Othello."
There'll also be the usual quota of frightened brides, full of nameless fears they won't let either us or their husbands in on. At least one of them, when confronted by the old house her husband just bought her, will say: "I have the strangest feeling I've been here before. I ... I just have a feeling that behind that door there's a winding staircase with a red carpet. (There is, too) and over on this side is . . ." Well, she has it exactly right. Seems she was murdered there three or four incarnations ago — the bones are still mouldering in the mysterious locked closet — and would be murdered again under identical circumstances except that, having gone through it once, she manages this time to forestall it.
Then there are the inevitable lines: "We thought you might know who he's shielding?— " "I? (frightened stare into the wings) How would I know?"
Or: "D'ya think I'm crazy? That stuff's hotter than an atomic furnace. We'd have every cop in town after us."
Or: (As they recognize the dim figure at the bottom of the garden): "Why — it's Adam.' What's he doing here?"
Or: "I don't get it. If Stokes is really Featherbottom's long-missing nephew who is legally entitled to his $4,000,000 fortune, why does he try to flee to South America?"
Or: (The private eye to the blustering Inspector) : "Now don't get excited." — "Excited! Who's excited?"
Or: "Just what are you suggesting, Martin Kane?"
Or: (From the blonde who has freely engaged in smuggling, dope-peddling and arson): "I don't want to get mixed up in any murder."
"Have you ever made any kind of study of the effect of television on hospitals? It might be the answer to the problem of keeping bed-ridden patients amused over a period of weeks. It might also be the answer to how the Russians get all those people to confess all those things.
"The wards here at Indiantown Gap (United States Army Hospital, Indiantown Gap, Pa.) are long and narrow, much the shape of army barracks, with fourteen beds on a side. The machine stands at the far end of the ward and it runs from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. without even taking time out for meals. It is very much reminiscent of the George Orwell machine made famous in 1894, except that Winston could leave his room while the bed-ridden soldier can't.
"It's hard for a layman like me to gauge the effect of this constant video ray bombardment. Certainly more of the guys look at TV than read. Certainly they are so engrossed with it that they hardly know their neighbors' names. Certainly they complain when it is shut off.
"Yet, when I was so fortunate as to be moved for a few days to the one ward without a set, I found some strange reactions. The men did read. They played cards. They argued. They griped. They seemed to be alive.
"Coming back to the TV ward I ceased