♪♪
[ Upbeat music plays in distance ]
♪ I wrote my mother
♪ I wrote my father
♪ And now I'm writing you, too
♪ I'm sure of mother
♪ I'm sure of father
♪ And now I wanna be sure
♪ Very, very sure of you
♪ Don't sit under the apple tree
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Anyone else but me
♪ No, no, no
♪ Don't sit under the apple tree
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Till I come marching home
♪ Don't go walking down lovers' lane
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Anyone else but me
♪ No, no, no
♪ Don't go walking down lovers' lane
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Till I come marching home
♪ I just got word from a girl who heard
♪ From the girl next door to me
♪ A boy she met just loves...
[ Music stops ]
[ Music resumes ]
♪ Till I come marching home
♪ Till I come marching ho...
[ Music stops ]
Good evening, uncle Dan.
Fred.
I wonder if we could talk for a moment.
Well, I was planning
to get to bed early tonight.
This won't take long.
Coffee?
I'll have Charles bring another cup.
No, thanks.
Well, now, nephew, which one of your many causes
brings you out into the snowy night, huh?
Some ubangis with the yaws?
Some perverted mass murderer who's seen the light
and wishes to assume his rightful place in society?
As an alternative
to the electric chair.
No, no, that was...
That was last year, wasn't it?
Was is it this time?
A movement to donate
the Mississippi river
to the Sahara desert?
You can do better than that.
Not on a full stomach, I can't.
Not before coffee.
I'm here
about one of your causes.
What about Jack Harris?
Harris?
Jack Harris?
I, uh... I don't know
the fella.
Professor John Harris?
You know him.
Look, Fred, we usually wind up our little discussions
yelling at each other.
Now, let's get a quiet start this time, all right?
Jack just called me.
The university board of trustees canceled his credentials
for the cultural exchange
program.
Ah, yes, yes, that Harris.
Yes, I-I heard that decision.
It was your decision.
You just said it was the trustees'.
I'm not even on the board.
The words were theirs, but the voice belonged
to a high-powered ventriloquist named Daniel Grudge.
You sit here at that desk,
throw your voice through a telephone, everybody jumps...
Bankers, politicians,
newspapers, universities.
This coffee is cold.
Now, why should a little thing like this
sit so heavily in your tender tummy, Fred?
"Little thing"?
Uncle Dan, you know what this project has meant
to all of us on the faculty,
to the whole university.
Everything from the raising
of our own pedagogical standards
to international recognition to...
We've worked on it for an entire year.
It's been cleared by Washington, cleared by the other end,
and now you come along to dump it all.
Why?
Why should you object if one of our professors
spends a year studying and teaching abroad?
Yes, abroad.
Poland, wasn't it?
Your professor Harris
was to spend a year in Poland
at the university of Krakow,
was it not?
Stop asking me questions you know the answers to.
Would you care
for a drink?
No, thanks.
And in exchange
for our professor Harris,
the university of Krakow in Poland
would send to our university
one of their boys,
whose name, even if I knew what it was,
is probably unpronounceable.
Korzeniowski.
It's really quite easily pronounced.
That's what's known these days
as a "cultural exchange."
You know, Fred, for a fairly talented professor of history,
you seem to be a little naive
as to the current political
climate of the native country
of this professor whatever-his-name-is.
Are you serious?
Stop asking me questions
you know the answers to, nephew.
Do you know what he teaches?
Do you know what Korzeniowski and Harris both teach?
18th-century European literature.
What's that got to do with politics?
I don't know.
And I'm not interested
in finding out.
Get smart, boy.
We've been digging his kind out of the woodwork for years.
You don't really expect me to be a party
to inviting one of them
in here, now, do you?
[ Laughing ] Oh, no.
No, he stays on his side of the fence,
and Harris stays on ours.
Get used to the idea.
When you finally go, that'll be your epitaph, won't it?
"Here lies Daniel Grudge,
on his side of the fence."
Well, get used to this idea,
uncle.
There are certain fences
the world can no longer afford.
Quite a wall through Berlin,
I've heard tell.
Exactly. A fence.
And who put it there? You think it's right?
All right, Fred.
Turn it off.
Right now.
There's only one side I'm on...
First, last, and always...
Our side.
Don't you ever forget that.
And spread it around.
I want all the members
of your various domestic
and international orders of the bleeding heart
to know precisely
where Daniel Grudge stands.
Because any time you
and/or one
of your fuzzy fellow do-gooders
tries to get me,
or friends of mine,
or my city, state,
or my country, involved
in any of your so-called causes,
then I intend to be there every time
with a body block that'll throw all of you
flat
on your involved butts.
Now, get out.
Merry Christmas, by the way.
Yeah, so it is.
And tonight,
especially tonight,
I'm in no mood
for the brotherhood of man.
Do you mind?
I've heard that speech.
And heard it.
Oh, I've had it with you, Fred.
With all of you, I've had it, right up to here.
Mind your own business.
And let everybody else
mind theirs.
Your responsibility
happens to be your classroom,
not classrooms in Krakow, Poland; Butte, Montana;
or Johannesburg,
South Africa.
Do you insist
upon making it a better world?
Won't you die happy until you do?
Do you insist upon
helping the needy and oppressed?
Is that some kind of an itch
that you can't stop scratching?
Then tell them to help themselves.
Let them know
the cash drawer is closed
and make them believe it.
You'll be surprised how much less needy and oppressed
the needy and oppressed
turn out to be.
But you've heard that one before.
And heard it.
No, I can't change you,
and you can't change me.
So just stay
out of my way, Fred,
out of my house,
and out of my life.
Uncle Dan.
Uncle Dan,
this is Christmas Eve,
a very special night,
apart from everything else,
for you and for me.
All my life, we've disagreed
about most things, you and I,
but there's one thing
we both have in common,
someone we cared
the world about...
Your son...
My cousin, Marley.
May I have
that drink now?
The one solitary thing on this earth
that I cared
anything at all for.
And to what end?
So that his life could be snuffed out?
His fine young body turned into
a bundle of bleeding garbage,
in return for which,
I'm sent his dog tags,
some medals, and a 12-word telegram?
Something for something.
I give them a son,
and they give me back
his effects.
That, I submit to you,
is a lousy bargain.
Nobody could argue that.
The point is
that kind of bargaining has got to stop.
Oh.
And who's gonna stop it?
Armies of professional
plea coppers, like you?
Your kind mouth the platitudes
that get us into war.
His kind
go off to fight them.
You might raise that point
with one of your debating societies.
The point that,
every two decades,
we seem to pay for your indiscriminate affections
with the lives of our sons.
Those indiscriminate affections, as you put it,
is simply the acknowledgement that all men have sons,
that grief
for the unnecessary dead
is not exclusive to this country, this town,
or to the house of Grudge.
Mine is exclusive.
It concerns me.
Forgive me, uncle Dan,
but I feel you mourn the death of Marley
less than you mourn your personal loss of him.
You keep his room
like a shrine.
You set a place for him at dinner each Christmas Eve
because he died
on Christmas Eve.
Those things are for you, not for him.
Who cares who they're for?
I'm the one who feels the pain.
And you'll go on feeling it,
nursing it even,
until you realize
the true tragedy,
the tragic insanity
of Marley's death.
Not that your son was killed
by another man's son,
but that mankind still allows
such dying to happen.
It wasn't his war.
No war is anybody's war!
I'm not talking about anybody.
How do we stay out?
By getting ourselves involved with the same people,
the same problems, the same places?
None of them our business?
Is that your answer? Involvement?
A hophead's pipe dream
in which everybody...
Yellow, black, and white...
Gets thrown into one pot,
and out comes a stew
called world brotherhood,
which mankind lives forever
in... in peace and putrefaction.
Is that your answer?
No, not even close.
But it's the way you keep putting it.
Maybe for some very private reason,
you have to keep telling it
to yourself that way.
At any rate, as you said,
I sure couldn't change you.
Thanks for the drink.
And I have a Christmas present for you, Fred.
Call it a contribution, if you like,
to all your causes,
involvements, exchanges,
cultural and otherwise,
whatever terms you apply
to international freeloading
on our pocketbook.
If you have this overpowering concern
for everybody everywhere in the world, here's your answer.
Just you put your effort, sweat, and faith
into developing the fastest bombers
and the most powerful missiles on earth.
They'll provide a lot more security for our young
and for the rest
of the world's young,
than all your debating
societies, forums, treaties,
pacts, and other forms of surrender and handout.
That's quite an answer,
uncle Dan, for today.
But what about tomorrow?
Of course, you'll Grant all other nations an equal right
to put their faith
and sweat and effort
in trying to make their bombs
faster and more powerful than ours.
Just let them try it.
Each behind its own fence.
Each capable, eventually,
of destroying everything
and everybody else.
And each uninvolved
with the other.
Uninvolved with us?
I'll settle for that.
Just let them know we have the biggest and the fastest.
Just let them know we're not too chicken to use them.
Peace on earth,
goodwill to men.
To all men, by the way.
[ Door closes ]
Daniel: Marley?
Marley?
♪ Don't sit under the apple tree
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Anyone else but me
♪ No, no, no
♪ Don't sit under the apple tree
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Till I come marching home
♪ Don't go walking down...
Do you hear anything?
Sir?
I asked you, did you hear anything?
Like what, sir?
♪ Anyone else but me
♪ No, no, no
Are you all right,
sir?
♪ With anyone else but me
♪ Till I come marching home
♪ I just got word
♪ From a girl who heard
♪ From the girl next door to me
♪ The boy she met
♪ Just loves to pet
♪ And it fits you to a "T"
♪ So don't sit under the...
[ Music stops ]
[ Chandelier tinkling ]
[ Tinkling ]
[ Bell ringing ]
[ Harmonica playing ]
[ Bell ringing ]
Hey, what do ya say, chief?
You're Grudge, huh?
Daniel Grudge, right?
Where, uh...
What is this,
some kind of a troop transport?
Yeah,
you might call it that.
On its way.
From France?
One of our stops.
Well, where else?
You name it.
[ Bell rings ]
Meet the troops.
They're dead.
Killed in action.
Chateau-Thierry,
Belleau Wood, the marne.
How you gonna keep them down on the farm
after they've seen Paris?
They saw Paris...
Very briefly.
Lafayette...
They were there.
You talk like the A.E.F.
What's your name?
I'm all the A.E.F.S.
Also B.E.F.S,
the Poilus,
the Huns, the Russkies,
et cetera.
Gallipoli, the Crimea,
even Waterloo,
if you care to go back that far.
You get the picture, chief?
I'm all of them.
I'm the one who rallied around the flag,
any flag, all flags.
See what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, no names
and all names, huh?
[ Laughs ]
You know,
I haven't heard that one
since the radio programs in the '30s.
Your name is
Joe, Tony, Izzy, Pat...
All one and the same.
America the melting pot, right?
Wrong.
I'm not getting across to you.
I can see that.
Who said only America,
sport?
I'm the dead,
all the dead.
We're quite a stew,
you'll have to admit.
Still, nameless as I am,
I've got a terrific title...
The Ghost
of Christmas past.
How's that hit ya?
It doesn't.
No, I don't look
like a ghost, huh?
Do you want
to make your point?
It's damp out here,
and I'm uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable?
You, chief?
Why, I've been given to understand you were an old salt.
That was 20 years ago
when I was in the Navy.
I'm afraid you still don't comprenez-vous.
Not 20 years ago.
20 years from now.
This is 1918. Capiche?
It was a long war
for some of these boys.
And short for some.
And a short life for ours.
Which ones were yours?
Can you pick them out?
We didn't belong
in that one, either.
[ Chuckles ]
"Made the world safe for democracy," did they?
That's what they were told.
[ Scoffs ]
They sure as hell
gave it a try.
Look, they change the hats,
they update the slogans,
but it's the same old shell game.
Like clockwork.
Every 20 years, somebody rings
a fire bell 10,000 miles away,
and out comes Uncle Sam's
expeditionary sucker brigade.
Is that what they are?
Suckers?
Is that what your son's gonna be?
My so...
My son?
My son will be a victim,
just as these men are our victims
of somebody else's war.
[ Laughs ]
You kill me, chief.
You really do.
If it isn't Valley Forge or the Boston Tea Party,
you leave it
strictly alone.
Your big gripe is what?
'Cause every 20 years,
American boys got to climb on troop ships
and head out for someplace else?
It rubs you raw.
So what else is new?
60,000 Limeys
die in Flanders.
100,000 Frogs
catch it at Verdun.
The Germans march
through Belgium,
and Austria declares war
on Japan, but who cares?
It's a nice summer.
Boston's gonna win
the World Series.
So we'll rock on the front porch
and swat flies.
Do I translate you right,
chief?
[ Bell rings ]
Better than American blood.
Infinitely better than American blood.
Amen, I grant you.
If it were possible.
But it ain't possible.
War is also
a contagious disease, Mr. G.
And until we can stamp it out entir...
Nobody... nobody ever found a way to do that.
Right.
But is that any reason to stop trying?
One thing we do know...
The only chance to keep
this particular disease from spreading
is to keep talking.
So long as you talk,
you don't fight.
Simple?
Look, I bump a guy on a street.
He bumps me.
We stand there. We argue.
He gives me lip.
I give him lip.
But when we stop talking,
we start swinging,
and then we bleed.
Then we got problems,
like... winding up dead.
I recognize the commercial,
but it's no sale.
Oh, I'm not selling ya,
pal.
I'm donating to you, free of charge.
[ Bell rings ]
Remember the...
Excuse the expression...
League of Nations, sport?
That was gonna be the point there, remember?
I would have been opposed to the League of Nations.
Of course you would.
And you were,
so you blew it.
A bunch of fancy characters with top hats and monocles.
"We're not buying any of that, right, Mr. G? No sale."
We've had it with foreigners.
We've had it with...
With "making the world safe for democracy"
and the rest
of the slogans.
So we tell them to drift.
We're sitting this one out.
That's how you keep wars
from happening, right, Grudge?
Don't get involved,
right?
Well, is it?
Tell them.
They'd like to know.
Wasn't that how you kept the world from a Second World War?
Uninvolvement,
stay isolated?
Wasn't that how? Well, tell them!
Well, obviously, if we hadn't become involved,
why, they wouldn't be here.
No, they... they
wouldn't be here.
They'd be back
in their hometowns.
What was left of them.
Buried,
right where they fell.
[ Fog horn blows ]
Another ship?
Also on her way.
[ Fog horn blows ]
I can just make out the deck.
Those are American soldiers
from my war.
[ Chuckles ]
Nicely put, chief.
They're the sons.
These are the fathers.
Yeah, after 1918,
we got sick of war, fed up.
All those American kids
getting blown to pieces,
out of sight in foreign places
with strange-sounding names.
So for the next 20 years,
we closed our eyes
and decided what we couldn't see
wouldn't happen, right?
'Course, we don't want to take all the credit, do we?
I mean, we weren't
the only ones playing shut-eye.
When old Adolf walked
into the Rhineland,
France didn't want
to get involved.
Italy pulled down a window shade
when Hitler took Austria.
England wasn't about to involve herself
when Czechoslovakia went under.
And Russia kept the phone off the hook
while Poland was destroyed.
And before you knew it,
everybody was singing,
"don't rock the boat"
while it sank slowly
to the bottom.
So, they died
at other places on other dates.
Don't you tell me you're not selling anything.
Now, you listen to me.
Nobody... nobody, mortal man
or dressed-up ghost,
can convince me that every time there's a war,
we have to step in and finish it.
Now, you listen to this.
The next one... the next one,
we don't bring up the bucket.
We stay home.
We stay on our...
Our side of the fence.
Talk about your old-time radio shows.
Seems to me,
I heard that one before, too.
Hey, you want to know something, pal?
That ocean you call a fence
keeps nothing out anymore...
Except fish.
It's a lousy stream of water now.
It's about as wide
as a ditch.
A couple of supersonic bombers
can spit over it.
An ICBM will leave it behind.
You don't want to get involved.
Sport, you got
a job ahead of you.
You really got a job.
You got to disinvent the airplane and the missile
and the submarine and a litte
old thing called the bomb.
It.
See what I mean?
You don't want to get involved,
you got to give back the 20th century,
if you can find a chump to take it.
But isolation?
I got news.
That went out with gas light and 50-cent steaks.
It's for the dinosaurs,
isolation.
And closing your eyes... That's for sleeping.
Also at certain times,
it... it leads to dying.
[ Fog horn blows ]
Convoy.
Hundreds of ships,
thousands of ships.
Loaded with boxes,
chief.
China, Ethiopia,
Spain, Latvia, Hungary.
Undeclared wars,
police actions.
Some minor-league
insurrections.
All the way back, chief.
All the way back as far as anyone can remember...
And still farther.
But it all boils down
to somebody stopped talking...
So they fought...
So they bled...
So they died.
Hey, wouldn't you think, sport...
With all the brains we got on this earth,
the way we build things
and cure things,
and invent stuff on Tuesday that
wasn't possible on Monday...
Wouldn't you think we could come up with something
that could keep a kid from
getting killed at the age of 18?
[ Harmonica playing ]
Daniel: Ghost?
Sir?
Where do they go?
The ships, I mean.
Where do they go?
Nowheres.
Like I said,
just on their way.
Why, Mr. Grudge?
You... you want
to throw a wreath or something?
[ Bell jingles ]
We've reached your port, Mr. Grudge.
This is
where we get off.
In here.
What's in there?
A place
you should remember.
A place...
A foreign place
you had a feeling about one time.
I doubt it.
Do you, chief?
Well, maybe you just don't remember too good.
Not only where you've been,
even what you say, like,
"let them know we're not
too chicken to use that bomb."
They already know that,
Mr. Grudge.
[ Explosion ]
Do you remember any better, Grudge?
Hiroshima, right?
Hiroshima.
I was here
in September 1945.
I was off my ship.
I came here.
Of course, this is only your memory of it.
It wasn't quite as clean
as you remember.
Well,
they did quite a job.
They cleared away all the dead
real quick.
They only left
the... silence.
[ Vehicle approaching ]
You recognize the officer, chief?
[ Girl singing in Japanese in distance ]
Why, it's me.
It's me 20 years ago.
It's me when I came here
that afternoon.
The daffy tricks
memory plays.
Some things we think
we forgot... we only misplaced.
Would you like
to get out here, sir?
[ Singing continues ]
Daniel: Good morning.
Do you speak English?
Yes, commander, I do.
Grudge is my name.
My cruise is in Yokohama.
This is lieutenant Gibson.
She's attached to our headquarters there.
Tell me, doctor,
who has that lovely voice?
That is Sachiko.
It means
"child of happiness."
Sachiko.
Doctor, was she...
She was one of the group of schoolgirls.
They were clearing away
fire lanes when the bomb fell.
Would you care to meet them?
They're very lonely here.
They enjoy company.
Thank you.
I must tell you that when
the plane flew overhead,
these children looked
up at the sky.
Their faces were upturned
to the blast.
They suffered
what we call flash burns.
It is a term we use to describe
instantaneous
thermal radiation.
How badly were they burned?
They have no more faces, commander.
[ Speaking Japanese ]
I told the young ladies that you're American naval officers,
and you've come
to... to wish them well.
Uh, doctor, I-I know it's not much consolation,
but at least we can hope that their children will...
Children, commander?
These girls?
[ Muffled sob ]
Excuse me.
Lieutenant?
Sir.
Never seen
a burn case before?
Several times, sir.
I was at
the Bethesda Naval Hospital.
I was there after Coral Sea,
after Midway, after Samar.
I saw
a lot of burn cases.
And when you saw them,
did you run?
The burn cases I saw were
American sailors, commander.
They had been fighting an enemy.
They weren't schoolchildren.
The distinction
is most subtle, sir.
I'll give you that.
But, my God,
there is a difference.
What about the kids at Pearl Harbor
who looked up toward the sky?
Or Malayan kids?
Or Chinese kids?
Sympathize all you want, lieutenant,
but keep your perspective.
The President of the United States
found it necessary to drop that bomb
because there would have been 500,000 American casualties
and a couple of million Japanese
dead had he not dropped it.
Harsh as it may sound,
in my book, that makes simple arithmetic.
Commander, I wouldn't debate
military planning with you.
I'm just suggesting that we are standing
in the middle
of what was once a city
where, on one given morning,
100,000 people were killed.
People, commander.
That's almost as many deaths
as the confederates had
in four years of civil war.
Quite apart
from anything else, sir,
doesn't that suggest to you
that, from this second on,
if the world ever decided
to go to war again,
it could kill itself off
in a couple of afternoons?
Doesn't it suggest, sir,
that... maybe...
Maybe war is obsolete now?
Just... just do me one favor,
would you please, commander?
Don't call it arithmetic
anymore.
Fujiko?
Koshiko?
Doctor: That's Kou.
Koshiko and Fujiko
were his sisters.
That's where they were that morning.
[ Thunder crashing ]
Whenever there's thunder now,
they always remember.
[ Singing in Japanese ]
Dear God.
[ Thunder crashing ]
Look, son,
you take it easy, huh?
Everything's gonna be
all right.
You understand me, huh?
It's just
a little thunder.
Come on. Give me a smile.
Come on. Little more.
Attaboy.
Thank you.
[ Engine turns over ]
"If thine enemy be hungry,
give him bread to eat.
If he be thirsty,
give him water to drink."
Your enemy thanks you,
commander.
It's starting to rain,
Mr. Grudge.
I remember the rain.
A yellow child is a black child
is a white child is a child.
Can we agree
to that much?
Where to now?
Through there,
Mr. Grudge.
Oh, I've been there.
This time,
it's... it's another place,
like every place
is another place.
Are you coming with me?
No, sir.
I'm then.
In there is now.
[ Harmonica plays "There's a long, long trail a-winding" ]
[ Music stops ]
Grudge, isn't it?
Daniel Grudge!
Join me in a snack, won't you?
Potluck, I'm afraid.
This table,
my chandelier.
You have an eye for possessions.
Glad to see it.
Little turkey, Mr. Grudge?
Drumstick, wing?
Baked ham, perhaps?
Candied yams,
suckling pig?
I find myself overeating at Christmas.
Thanksgiving, too.
A tradition of overeating, as it were.
You don't make sense to me.
My apologies, Mr. Grudge.
I thought you knew.
I'm the Ghost of Christmas present.
Representing what, gluttony?
[ Laughs ]
If you like.
No, I-I represent
the human race, Mr. Grudge.
So, to a certain extent, does gluttony.
Also starvation...
I represent that, too.
You might say that I'm as close
to being a walking, eating image
of the human race
as it's possible
for a man or a phantom to be.
Part of me
feels a gnawing hunger.
Part of me is satiated.
I'm warm,
contented, healthy,
but much of me shivers in the cold.
Now I understand.
This is where I get my lecture
about the haves and the have-nots.
Mankind includes extremes, Mr. Grudge.
Extremes, yet some people
living alone in a 24-room house,
and 24 others living
in one room.
Some eating high off the hog...
And some
simply not eating at all.
Not at all.
[ Bell ringing ]
Displaced persons.
Today, more than 20 years after...
Quite a few of them
still around.
The barbed-wire set.
How can you eat like this
when you know that they're right there, staring at you?
Why not?
Well, it takes a special breed
to stuff himself in front of starving...
You hit the point there, old boy. You really did.
It takes a special breed, indeed.
But you see, I don't happen to be a breed, Mr. Grudge.
I'm a ghost.
I don't have a heart.
I don't have a soul.
No nerve endings,
no brain center.
I'm just a reflection.
But then, I've already told you that.
Shall I now tell you how many
times you've stuffed yourself
while 2/3 of the world starved
in a cage?
Here.
Throw them a bone.
Don't you talk to me like that.
I have feelings.
Nothing on this earth
could force me to eat
while starving people watched me.
Watching makes all the difference, what?
You never saw them while tearing
into your mashed potatoes.
They weren't actually there
when you buttered your bread.
[ Snaps fingers ]
There.
Better, Mr. Grudge?
Appetite back?
Do... sit down.
You're gonna have to explain
the logic of man to me,
Mr. Grudge.
For example,
tell me how you come about
your selective morality,
this ease with which you strip
off your conscience
like an overcoat
and let your satisfied belch
drown out the hunger cries
that fill the air around you.
How do you create
this exact science
whereby
you disinvolve yourself
from all the anguish of the world
that doesn't happen to be in your direct line of vision?
That doesn't take a special
breed of man at all, Mr. Grudge.
That is man in his normal condition.
No.
No, man isn't cruel.
I don't think I'm cruel,
but we can't...
At least... at least I can't
spend my time grieving
because part of the world is
rich and part of it is poor,
because part of it has
and part of it has not.
But we see, when we actually see
human beings in want,
we react, we respond.
Is that a fact,
Mr. Grudge?
[ Chandelier tinkles ]
Daniel: Do you insist upon making it a better world?
Won't you die happy
until you do?
Do you insist upon helping the needy and oppressed?
Then tell them to help themselves.
Let them know the cash drawer is closed,
and make them believe it.
You'll be surprised how much less needy and oppressed
the needy and oppressed
turn out to be.
I couldn't eat
another bite.
They make the portions
much too big these days.
Obsolete materials.
Vitamins, calories,
small fragments of nutrition...
That's not what they want.
You tell them, Mr. Grudge.
You tell them what it is.
It's bombers and missiles,
isn't it?
Tell them. That's their diet for survival.
No, no, that... that was
in a different context.
I was talking politics
at the time.
Politics, Mr. Grudge?
Politics?
Now, grasp this,
if you can.
Humanity is no longer
a political thesis.
It is not
a subject for debate.
There are no pros and cons,
no arguments and rebuttals.
We are talking about human want and human need,
and this
is a fact of life.
And as to your involvement, Mr. Grudge,
you are involved, sir,
as of the date of your birth.
You are all mankind
because you are
a part of mankind,
a Willy-nilly, as it were.
[ Singing in foreign language ]
[ Singing continues ]
[ Singing stops ]
Mankind, Mr. Grudge.
In there.
The hungry part of mankind.
The anguished part.
The dispossessed.
If you shared a loaf of bread with them,
how would you be relinquishing your freedom?
Or if you joined other nations
to administer vaccinations to their children?
How would you have desecrated your flag?
Or if you had offered them solace and hope and comfort,
how would you have made yourself susceptible to tyranny?
What are they singing?
Foreign words.
But not necessarily conspiracies
to destroy you, Mr. Grudge.
Just Christmas songs.
And of those who do not celebrate Christmas,
songs of hope.
They sang them in their languages
before you did in yours.
Your Christmases have just been a lot merrier.
That's all.
And your hope
more of a reality.
Are there many like this?
Many?
Mr. Grudge, many?
You'd like it statistically?
Would you appreciate that?
The clean, calculated order
of mathematics?
Like how many million tons of wheat are surplus,
how many tons of butter rot in warehouses?
Well, here it is,
Mr. Grudge... arithmetic,
the mathematics of now,
right now, this Christmas,
but don't take your eyes off these faces.
Keep relating.
On this earth, Mr. Grudge,
there are 10 million displaced persons.
They're without homes, without property.
They own nothing.
They are stripped of rights,
stripped of nationality.
Barbed-wire nomads
whose crime was that they lived in a world that went to war.
Don't take your eyes off of them!
Keep relating, Mr. Grudge.
On this earth,
13 million human beings have tuberculosis.
There are 10 million blind.
There are 130 million cases of malaria.
Today, the present,
now on the clock, and now on the calendar,
2/3 of the world, Mr. Grudge, go to bed hungry.
1/2 of the earth's population...
That's 3 billion people...
Actually suffer from hunger,
from lack of food.
Of these, Mr. Grudge, there are 100 million children.
No more, now!
No more now?
No more this moment?
When, Mr. Grudge?
Tomorrow, Thursday,
a week from today,
will you think about them?
A month from today,
will you involve yourself?
I-I don't want to see them. I don't want to look at them.
Do!
Do, Mr. Grudge!
Look at them... now!
Because tomorrow,
a week from now,
a lot of them won't be around!
No more, now!
I want to get out!
I want to go back where I belong!
Do you understand?!
I just want to leave here!
Please leave me alone!
So, there you are, Grudge.
I was expecting you.
I thought you'd be here a bit sooner.
Why, this is the meeting hall
in our town.
That's what it is.
This is our town hall.
Why is it this way?
You're in the future,
Mr. Grudge.
The future?
World's future.
You've gone on a bit,
so to speak.
What do you think
of the old neighborhood?
Our town hall.
But what could have done this? What happened here?
Time.
Time happened here, Mr. Grudge.
Attrition, neglect, misuse,
a few passing catastrophes.
Time.
Of little consequence, really.
There grew to be less and less
need for a meeting place,
for a platform for debate.
The American town hall,
you will remember, Mr. Grudge,
was a microcosm of all the meeting halls of the world,
places where men
could talk it over.
It seems we reached
a moment in time
when talk became superfluous,
so now your town hall is past tense.
But then again, if you step outside,
you will note that most
of what you see is past tense.
Or rather, most of what you don't see.
How far in the future am I?
It is "a" Christmas Eve,
"a" night of December the 24th.
The year is not important.
Calendars are
past tense now also.
The clock is stopped.
Indeed.
The clock is stopped.
So has electricity.
The fact is
there are so few people around, the loss is hardly noticed.
Why?
Comprehending, are you, Mr. Grudge?
There was a war.
A dandy.
When?
On doomsday.
We don't have dates now, but that's how it's remembered.
The exact hour hardly matters, does it?
It seemed at a given moment,
we thought
that they'd dropped some bombs,
or th thought we'd dropped some bomb.
Anyway, somebody thought
somebody had dropped some bombs.
By then, of course,
everybody had the bomb.
They'd all been wanting it, you remember?
It got so with no controls
that nobody was really anybody
if they didn't have the bomb.
What you see before you,
Mr. Grudge, is a tiny part
of a big, round, radioactive
mud burying ground.
Is it all like this?
Is the whole world a burying ground?
All of it!
All of the towns
and all of the meeting places
and all of the countries
of the world... just like this.
Did no one speak out?
Was there no single voice of reason?
But...
What about the... the United Nations?
It was supposed to keep the peace.
The United...
Oh. [ Chuckles ]
That town meeting hall.
Oh, yes, well, that went some time back, I'm afraid.
You see, they dropped out.
Or maybe we dropped out.
Anyway,
somebody dropped out,
and pretty soon, everybody
was dropping or had dropped out.
And before anybody knew it,
the talking had stopped.
But there were voices, Mr. Grudge.
The world didn't lack for sound.
Behind each separate fence, each separate wall
came screams of anger,
suspicion, and prejudice.
And they grew, and they grew.
But there were no answers, remember,
no discussion,
no place for it.
And so, in the end, the world was filled
with the noise of hate,
and inevitably...
[ Indistinct talking ]
Ahh.
The inheriting strong of the earth.
The fittest who happened to survive.
The leftovers of the crap game
after they rolled the H-bomb
and nobody made their point.
[ Band playing in distance ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Both screaming ]
[ Cheers and applause continue ]
I am the imperial me.
All: The imperial me!
Hallelujah!
And this is the non-government
of the me people.
The non-government
of the me people!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Now, why don't we just relax
and get nice and cozy?
Now, folks,
the first item on today's agenda
is this business
of the people from down yonder
and the people from across river
wanting to come in here
and talk about what they call
our mutual problems,
our common differences.
[ Crowd murmurs ]
Now, they want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk
about our problems.
They want to debate, debate,
debate about solutions
until somehow
they get their problems solved.
They want to waste our time.
They want us to commit ourselves
to that kind of surrender.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Unpatriotic!
They're... They're insane.
Unpatriotic!
[ Shouting stops ]
Now, then.
They don't come out
in so many words
and say that they want
to take us over.
[ Chuckles ]
They're too clever for that.
But that's what they want.
They want to take over us individual me.
And if we let them seep in here
from down yonder
and across river,
if we let these do-gooders,
these bleeding hearts propagate
their insidious doctrine
of involvement among us,
then, my dear friends,
my beloved mes,
we'se in trouble...
Deep, deep trouble.
[ Laughter ]
And because...
Because we have now reached
a pure state of civilization,
the world of the ultimate me
is finally within our grasp...
This world where only the strong
will exist,
where only the powerful
will love,
where finally the word "we"
will be stamped out
and will become "I" forever.
Because we are each the wise...
We are each the strong...
And we are each
the individual mes!
[ All chanting "me!" ]
There's Charles.
Hey, Charles! Over here!
It's Mr. Grudge!
He doesn't hear you.
He doesn't see you.
You're as much a phantom as I am.
[ Chanting continues ]
Listen! Listen!
No, listen!
No!
Please! No!
Listen!
Listen to me!
[ Chanting continues ]
Please, let me speak!
[ Chanting stops ]
Let him speak.
To the best of our knowledge,
we are all of humanity
who remain alive,
all that's left.
Now, we have survived the Holocaust,
and if we are to go on surviving, we must work together now.
We must talk together.
[ Light laughter ]
And if other people want to join us, if they want to talk with us,
we... we must listen to them.
[ Laughter ]
And we must respond to them.
We must begin again.
We must have law again and
ethics and honor and decency.
[ Laughter ]
These things were not destroyed by the bomb!
[ Laughter continues ]
This time, they must be made real!
They must be made facts!
Only these things can guarantee our survival!
[ Laughter continues ]
The potential goodness of man.
[ Laughter continues ]
The potential morality of man.
[ Laughter continues ]
The capability... that's it!
The capability of human beings
to achieve dignity and decency.
Together!
Not "I" or "they," but "we."
Don't you understand?
The only alternative to that is nothing!
Don't you see that, people?!
Don't you see?!
[ Laughter continues ]
[ Microphone bangs ]
That's enough. Bring him over here.
Come. Bring him over here.
You are charged with the treason of involvement.
You are charged with the subversion of the individual me.
How do you plead?
Woman: Guilty, guilty!
All: Guilty, guilty, guilty!
[ All shouting ]
[ Microphone bangs ]
[ Shouting stops ]
You anything to say?
It's your right as an individual me, you know.
Just say anything that comes in your head.
You don't have to think about it.
Just say it.
Go ahead.
Oh, you want
to use the microphone?
I may be all the sanity that is left.
I may be all the conscience that remains on earth.
I can't let you kill me!
[ Laughter ]
Jump.
[ All shouting "jump!" ]
Animals.
Miserable, rotten animals.
Revelation, Mr. Grudge?
Brand-new experience for you, is it?
Don't you remember
people shouting "jump, jump, jump" in your day,
closing their windows to screams in the street?
Hiding behind their newspapers in the subways
while their fellow men were being assaulted?
And later, while civilization
was being raped?
Take a good look, Mr. Grudge!
[ Chanting continues ]
[ Gunshot ]
[ Chanting stops ]
[ Crowd gasps ]
[ Indistinct conversations ]
[ Microphone bangs ]
And now, my friends,
next on the agenda,
we must go out and dispose of those people
from down yonder and across river
who want to come in here and talk.
We must dispose of them, you understand?
All: Dispose! Dispose!
[ Applause ]
Because we are the individual mes,
and we must carry our glorious philosophy
through to its glorious culmination
so that the end, with enterprise and determination,
the world and everything in it
will belong to one individual me,
and that'll be the ultimate,
the absolute ultimate!
[ Cheers and applause ]
So, mes, after we kill
the interlopers, the talkers,
the involvers
who are on their way here now,
we shall then be free to proceed
with the most important business
of all, which is...
The killing of each other
until there remains
only the one individual me.
Right?
All: Right!
One!
Alone!
Then let's get at it.
Each behind his own fence,
each behind his own barricade.
Follow me,
my friends, my loved ones,
to the perfect society...
The civilization of "I"!
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Band playing ]
Pictorial enough for you, is it, Mr. Grudge?
Rubble and madness.
Rubble and madness...
I can't imagine
why you're surprised.
When the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima,
the fate of man could have been predicted
by a cut-rate gypsy.
The ultimate garden of Eden...
Planted by man,
cultivated by his weapons,
and irrigated by his blood,
and brought to fruition
by his prejudices and his hate.
Ghost...
Ghost, tell me something.
Did I die before all this?
Tell me what happened to me.
What happened to me?!
Just answer me one thing!
One thing!
Is the world
that you've shown me tonight
the world as it must be
or as it might be?
Tell me!
I want to know!
Tell me! Tell me!
Must it be like this?
Must it be like this?!
Tell me!
Tell me! Tell me!
[ Chandelier tinkling ]
[ Telephone beeping ]
[ Beeping stops ]
[ Bell tolling ]
Are you all right, sir?
I just went up to call you.
Your bed hadn't been slept in.
Oh, I, uh...
I must have dozed off by the fire in the study.
I, uh...
I spent the night down here, Charles.
Then I'll see about your breakfast, sir.
[ Doorbell rings ]
Uncle Dan.
Good morning.
Are you all right?
Yes, of course I am.
Why shouldn't I be?
You didn't seem too good at 3:00 this morning.
I what?
When you phoned me.
When I phoned you?
Oh, yes, I-I may well have done that.
Come in... please.
You said on the phone
that you wanted me to drop by on my way to church,
that you had something to say to me.
I... well, I-I just wanted to... to apologize to you, Fred,
for... for last night.
Thank you, uncle Dan.
I...
[ Children singing ]
That's from New York...
United Nations.
Children of the delegates singing Christmas Carols
in their native languages.
Of course, that won't stop their fathers
from beating each other's brains
out tomorrow... with words.
I've heard those songs.
Not here, somewhere else.
Recently, too.
I'll have Charles turn it off.
Uh, no.
No.
It's a good sound...
kids' voices.
[ Sighs ]
You know, Fred, I, uh...
About this family of nations,
I'm not at all sure
that it's the final answer.
Perhaps it's not the final one,
but so far, it's the only possible one.
Possibility, perhaps.
So long as there are children,
I suppose there are possibilities.
So long as there are children,
there have to be possibilities.
I've been giving things some thought,
some... [chuckles]
some second thoughts.
Oh?
Any conclusions?
No, maybe an observation or two.
For instance?
For instance,
the old one, banal by now,
that no man,
as the poet says, is an island.
It seems the conclusion is inevitable.
There must be involvement.
Every man's death does diminish me.
It appears we've run out of the luxury of alternatives, Fred.
We find ourselves living in a world
in which we either greet the morning or accept the night.
So, I wish you a merry Christmas, Fred.
And a good morning.
Merry Christmas, uncle.
[ Singing continues ]
♪ God rest, ye merry gentlemen
♪ Let nothing you dismay
♪ Remember Christ, our Savior
♪ Was born on Christmas day
♪ To save us all from Satan's power
♪ When we were gone astray
Good morning, Ruby.
Good morning, Mr. Grudge.
♪ Oh, tidings of comfort and joy
[ Click ]
I, uh... I thought I'd have my coffee in here this morning.
[ Singing in French ]
♪ Glo-o-o-o-o-o-ria
♪ In excelsis deo
♪ Glo-o-o-o-o-o-ria
♪ In excelsis deo
♪ Oh, come, all ye faithful
♪ Joyful and triumphant
♪ Oh, come, ye, oh, come, ye
♪ To Bethlehem
♪ Come and behold Him
♪ Born the King of angels
♪ Oh, come, let us adore Him
♪ Christ, the Lord
♪ A-a-a-amen