Professor Eisengel’s Tomb
An introductory note …
It was blessed enough to be friends with Mark Barragar, whom
I’ve mentioned in previous posts here,
and here.
At one point Mark hoped to have his own horror-host show,
and I was going to write him some scripts.
Mark wanted his character to be a Cyclopean type -- that is, only one
eye (don’t ask me why). So after a
little banter we came up with the name Professor Eisengel -- get it? “Single eye”?
PROFESSOR EISENGEL'S
TOMB
{Show
1}
[written
completely by Mark Alfred]
[FADE IN FROM OPENING CREDITS.
[A tomb, kiddies, is where we're
at. Stone walls, moldy with age and
moss, perhaps with manacles on one wall with a "guest ghost of the
week" shackled there, or maybe a coffin with a "guest ghost"
inside if we want to go to that much trouble.
[This tomb has been fixed up as a mad
scientist's lab, with beakers a-bubbling and various experiments in progress
and machinery all ready to shoot sparks, etc.
[Front and center is the raised
platform originally intended to bear a coffin, but now is Professor Eisengel's
main workbench, the center of the action many times.
[In fact, as we FADE IN, Professor
Eisengel standing behind the dais facing us,
pouring bubbly stuff from one beaker to another. He looks up in surprise at our appearance,
but gives us a welcoming smile.]
PROFESSOR EISENGEL:
Greetings! And
welcome to Professor Eisengel's Tomb.
If you're with the Cemetery Preservation Society's Midnight Bus Tour,
I'm afraid you've made a serious wrong turn.
No? Then you must be here to join me on a --
[he squints at the camera, shrugs,
and continues]
an in-depth survey . . . of the autobiographical poetry of .
. . William Wordsworth . . . ?
[He comes around from behind the
dais and stomps angrily up to the camera.
It jiggles as if bumped. We hear
ripping, tearing sounds, and a few big, torn pieces of white cardboard with
writing on them -- cue cards he just tore up -- fly in front of the camera to
land anywhere on the floor. P.E. stomps
back to his afore place as the camera settles back into stability.]
P.E.
[muttering
under his breath, but so we can hear]:
That's the last time we hire an English Lit major to recopy
my cue cards! Well, who needs cue cards
anyway!
[We hear an ominous rumbling on the
soundtrack. P.E. looks worriedly at his
workbench, selects one of the beakers as the source of the problem, grabs it,
and drinks down its contents in one gulp.
Then we hear an explosive, resonant burp sweetened through an echo sound
effect.]
Excuse me, how rude not to share! But, allow me to introduce myself!
I am Herr
Doktor Professor Isaac Eisengel, late of the Vienna School of Metaphysics, the
Class of Ought-Six -- the final class to graduate before that scandalous
business involving the trained goat, the Dean of the Dental School, and that
barrel of whipped molasses.
At any
rate, my friends, welcome! We're here to
enjoy an hour or so's diversion as together we watch a classic fantasy film --
or, perhaps, a film that tried, but failed, to become a classic.
Tonight's
movie is a strange tale, a story that attempted to chart new paths in the
realms of the fantastic . . . but instead became hopelessly lost.
{BREAK}
[We're back.
Professor Eisengel is hanging up an ornate telephone. As he says his goodbyes, he looks up to
welcome us back.]
PROFESSOR EISENGEL:
. . . and I hope
you're feeling better soon! G'bye!
Oh! hello!
And welcome back, my friends. I
was just talking to my cousin, Onkmeyer Eisengel. He's an optometrist -- lives up in Juneau,
Alaska. Sort of an optical Aleutian, you
might say!
Yes, poor
fellow, he's been on work relief since last Friday, when he had an accident at
his office. He wasn't looking where he was going, and
backed into his lens-grinding machine . . . got a little behind in his work! Yes, he nearly made a spectacle of himself!
[He waits a beat for the viewers to
get the puns and to groan.]
We'll see you again in a bit.
{BREAK}
[Seated
next to Professor Eisengel, or across a lab table from him, is a second
person. He's a snooty, know-it-all type
with a bow tie and affected Boston accent.]
PROFESSOR EISENGEL:
Joining us now is our resident expert on fantasy and
science-fiction films, Doctor Mark.
DOCTOR MARK:
Hello.
P.E.:
What fascinating bits of trivia do you have for us
concerning tonight's film?
D.M.:
Ahemm . . . well, if you'll watch the second scene after we
go back to the film -- that's the scene featuring the two nuns in the airplane
-- you'll notice that about halfway through the scene, the picture jerks as if
badly spliced, and you lose a word or two of dialogue --
P.E.
[butting
in]:
Hey, you know, I screened that film here at the station just
yesterday afternoon, and I noticed that
splice, and it really set my teeth on edge.
D.M.
[trying
to continue his lecture]:
Yes, well, as I said --
P.E.
[interrupting
again without noticing he's doing it]:
-- and I would have tried to get another print sent in from
the film distributor, but there wasn't enough time for them to ship us another
one.
D.M.
[managing
to slip in between when P.E. takes a breath]:
Yes, well, it wouldn't have done you any good.
P.E.
[brought
up short]:
No?
D.M.:
No. That splice is
extant in all prints of the film, and for a very fascinating reason, too.
P.E.:
Go on! This is . . .
fascinating.
D.M.
[patiently]:
I'm trying to.
Yes, well,
the story behind that splice goes like this.
The director, Bingham Flitmoor, was in the cutting room with his film
editor, Randall Skontich. They had come
to this point in the film. Now, Skontich
had, just the week before, finalized his divorce decree from starlet Leticia
Lakelimb. It had been a dreadful, messy
affair, with accusations on both sides of emotional and physical abuse. Some of these allegations even involved
MacTeague, Skontich's Irish Wolfhound.
He was right there in the cutting room with his master, as was his wont.
Anyway, as
they ran this particular scene through the film editing apparatus, the voice of
the older nun in this airplane scene must have reminded the dog MacTeague of
Miss Lakelimb's own voice, for the beast went wild!
P.E.:
You mean . . .
D.M.:
Yes. The dog tore
into that film like, in the immortal words of Bill Haley and His Comets,
"like a one-eyed cat peepin' in a sea-food store." Now Flitmoor, the director, had his
cherrywood cane with him, and in the commotion knocked both Skontich and the
dog quite senseless. He had them dragged
from the cutting room and assembled the scene himself.
P.E.:
So, that glitch in the film . . .
D.M.
[concluding
triumphantly]:
. . . is where the
damned dog bit the film in two!
P.E.
[marveling
to himself]:
I can't believe this!
This is great!
D.M.:
And what's more, several influential film critics took the
rough splice as a deliberate artistic statement. One writer said -- and I quote -- "This
deconstructional technical intrusion illustrates Flitmoor's underlying theme of
the transparent pretense evident in the characters' interpersonal
relationships."
P.E.:
Fascinating!
D.M.:
So now, let's watch the film, and be careful not to miss the
scene involving the two nuns in the airplane.
P.E.:
All right. Thank you,
Dr. Mark.
D.M.:
Thenk yew.
{BREAK}
[FADE IN.
Professor Eisengel is sitting at his computer center busily typing in
stuff. Evidently he hits a wrong key,
for all of a sudden we hear a dreadful electronic squeal, followed by a loud
sound-effects recording of a car crash.
P.E. yanks his hands away from the keys and starts cursing in
technobabble.]
PROFESSOR EISENGEL
Drat! That crummy
ratzle-fratzing frackabrack [etc.]
[Suddenly he looks up and notices
the camera. Embarrassed at having been
caught in a human weakness, he apologizes.]
Umm, hi there! Sorry,
I didn't know I was "on." Now
you know why we call it a cursor, eh? Grrr . . . two day's work gone -- shot -- kaput -- down the tubes! Well, I guess nowadays they use chips, not
tubes!
{BREAK -- THE END
of Show #1}
