TWICE TOLD TALES (1963; d. Sidney Salkow, w+p Rbt E Kent)

portrait (img-ideal; not actual woman/person), who died on eve of wedding (intended bridge from mother-attachment to maturity) 40 yrs ago (½ his lifetime: divided self, previous life defined by union w/t feminine, latter (½ by her ghost); asks 2B buried w/ dried rose (fem icon: desire 2B associated in memory/unconscious w/ former fe/male identity) then toasts Syl’s "infinite patience" (inevitability of reunion of alienated halves of psyche) thru window to her crypt (membrane btwn sexual selves + life/death, un/conscious; mausoleum door her undisturbed hymen [again, à la window]), which lightning (revelation) soon jars open (intuition of Syl’s un-virginity: recognition o/t sexual mother, lightning gods’ mythical method of fertilizing Mother Earth).

Inside (1st time open in 38 yrs: memory + long-buried knowledge; return as to womb, from which reborn into knowledge of corruption), Sylvia’s coffin fallen (as she from grace; subconscious disorder drawing Karl to investigate + discover) + water dripping from crack above (tomb new Eden, embedded in earth instinctual nature of material found there) onto coffin (as egg, water semen similarly fertilizing contents; hole it bored thru lid more deflowering) containing perfectly preserved fiancée (memory, + illusion of purity), reinvigorating K’s scientific curiosity (dream-agent revived in order to analyze + resolve curious info both buried + unearthed at time of upheaval [senescence mind/body’s slide twd sleep/death]); back in lab (dream theater, where imgs/archetypes put thru paces in order to reveal truth/nature; return from tomb/womb rebirth, he psychic child of elemental/archetypal inter-course), water sample "defies analysis" (mental contrivance enabling drama to unravel; examination à la DNA test on similar body fluid soon to yield who real "father" is) – from "virgin spring?" (hardly) – so tests it on time-lapse rose (restoring own femininity) before drinking some w/ Alex (arm wrestling aftwd underlining gay subtext thru’out, jollity broken when K spies Syl portrait).

Boys carry Sylvia to lab (transference of mother/fem-img from storehouse-unconscious to consciousness), where Karl uses newfangled instrument (hypo: puer’s discovery of lifegiving property o/t phallus) to revive her (pseudo-sex for bride in tattered white), telling her about "peculiar liquid dripping from the ceiling of yr crypt" (n.c.) before going upstairs to get her wedding dress (return her to exalted virginal img), she + Alex retiring to fireplace to get reacquainted (re-union of animus + anima at symbolic center o/t Self, hearth à la altar for couple whose "marriage" made in hell) + share deep kiss (oedipal father’s possession o/t mother, he having taken "all a wmn has to offer" on wdg eve, ie Al both world-corrupting power + device by which child loses false img of world’s/mother's purity [each work o/t Serpent, tomb-water both menstrual blood + His venom-aka-semen]); Karl, on stair (in transit on passage down), overhears (child’s realization – fireplace also illumination à la lightning – of parents’ secret sexual life, bringing him [+ his img of her] down to earth) how Alex poisoned her (snake/venom) to prevent her "spite marriage" (K recognizing error of mother-attachment + her mis-taken "romance;" replaying archaic droit du seigneur K's realization also of inimical God).

While Sylvia upstairs dressing (all characters play-acting, Karl now stringing others along the consciousness entering lucid dream, in which it can manipulate outcome), Alex turns knife on K (hypo-reversal, phallus now used as weapon + resolving homosexual subtext) + both age back to normal (drm ending + manchild’s accession to authentic maturity on death of mother-attached not-self), skeleton-bride Syl on stair (returned to bare-bones archetype status + revealed for true self: vestige + anachronism retired on passage btwn developmental levels [cf Alex/Vincent Price’s similarly transplanted + back-from-grave wife in doorway in dir’s next-yr Last Man on Earth] + horror of heterosexual expectation); cries "The water dsn’t last" (life expectancy + shock of water "breaking" on expulsion from 2nd womb, K again own dead atavistic psychic baby-fat self) + flees to crypt (unconscious material returning there at chaotic end of drm + last-ditch attempt to regain womb/innocence, drama earth/Gaia’s drm of Her children returning to fecundate new life – "push up the daisies" – action also reiterating Al’s archaic entering that sacred space: raping Mater Ge will result in man’s reciprocal death), where crack dried up (vaginal dryness [à la skeleton-bride] earth's used-up ability to self-fecundate [till next rain]), his "You’ve left me nothing" ecological Who’s Sorry Now.

Enclosed garden (literal "paradise") contains strange plant (garden also unconscious, where thrive many such) + stranger Beatrice Rappaccini (1 + same, both mysterious organic outgrowth of psyche housing grounds), addressed by student (inquirer into enigma w/i) Giovanni Guasconti from window above (overview necessary to understanding issue, he also "above" earthy nature), overseen by father Giovanni Rapp (owner of bldg, ie personality in which drama unfolding); Gio pumps landlady for info (she mental caretaker in 1st scene bringing

basket to gate: supplying dream-material to unconscious theater) on Mistress Rapp (fem img new to consciousness): name told her by father (namegiving fr in garden aka God), no visitors in her 20 yrs there (mind’s remove from outside world creating strange interior; Bea complex reached maturity). Gio asks science prof Baglione (god of physical properties to cf other-informer landlady, who hips him to noumena) about Bea, told instead about father (1 + same, again, she "outgrowth" of his psyche): most respected Prof in university (former conscious state, at height of rational pwr) till wife took off w/ another man (loss of femininity = loss of divinity: birth-separation separating man also from inner-fem; Rapp stuck in oedipal affront at mother’s infidelity); sickly Rapp (consc’ss flagging) burns glove on plant (forbidden fruit, he allergic/antithetical to organic, natural world), while Bea immune (one w/ interior reality) thanks to fr’s raising her on its poison (his anger + jealousy) so "none o/t world’s sin" wd touch her (Puritan America [Hawthorne’s homeland]’s fear o/t physical breeding unnatural + noxious perspectives), wants 2B thot of "as a wmn – not death" (cf similar dead wmn living or returning in "Dr H’s Experiment" awa dir Salkow’s next, Last Man on Earth, whose later character Ruth similar hybrid bearing both normal awa diseased chemistry).

Tells Bea he dreamed she invited him down from window (male soul’s desire for communion w/ anima, he also made sexual whole after windowpane truncation; her reciprocal desire for father/man/animus to come down from heavenly remove + acknowledge equality) to garden where he thot self "dead because it was heaven" (premonition, he sharing fr’s Puritan fear of earthly delights manifested in wmn); enters of own accord (rape) + witnesses insect butterfried on plant ("it had no right 2B in the garden"), returning that night 2B told her secret ("fr made me what I am": product of his img of fallen wmnhood), killing lizard to demonstrate (shriveling phallus, she – unwilling – vagina dentata) + driving him away (deprived of male company/own phallus, animus turned animosity in her veins).

Gio + Prof analyze lizard (on slide, à la "Heidegger’s" water-slide [+ similar analysis in LME]: investigating male destructive pwr [vs "H’s" generative fem]), Gio returning home to find Rapp’s invitation (extension of inquiry, he to learn goings-on in Father the God/archetypal man’s mind), whereupon he promised Bea (presently sedated: Rapp’s anima temporarily on hold); drugged (active investigating consciousness subsumed to let irrational drama play out) + infused w/ poison (apparently lethal only externally: paranoia o/t tangible world coupled w/ blindness to interior disorder; operation à la LME’s transfusion of antidote blood into diseased system) so there’ll be "never anyone else - for either of you" (warped dependency à la Dr H + friend Alex).

Consults Prof on antidote ("the problem is complex," ie the complex is the problem – Baglione elder/senex dreamer of drama, Gio’s reporting informing him of issue w/i, Rapp broken-off psychic material mutating in isolation]) to no avail; unites instead w/ Bea (cure in joining w/ anima), to father’s delight (closing of own dysfunctional circuit, his animus on way to reproducing self w/i contaminated garden) + both quaff untested antidote (they/love the cure, again – for anger) + die (resolved), leaving Rapp to take gloves off (regain contact w/ world/consciousness) + grasp plant (complex also resolved, natural world itself inimical to out-of-touch unrealist).

meaning both original hunt bogus + she has resolved issue by embracing it) w/ wife Alice (37-yr-old Beverly Garland + 52 VP, she attached to similarly archaic daddy-issues) after 17 yrs (complex nearing age of majority, ready to mature/move on), husband + wife taking 2 separate rooms (sexual dysfunction inheritance o/t Puritan past; weaselly, avaricious GP also alienated from own anima ["light sleeper" estranged from unconscious/intuition/insight]), Alice admitting to Hannah return "not 1st of his mistakes I’ve had to accept" (wmn historically suffering men’s misjudged actions, her abiding nature redemptive quality of good-anima vs H’s castigating bad-).

Alice feels chill outside room (later revealed as spirit possessing her: archetype adopting outwd img so 2B recognized + understood) + intuits layout of house (especially garden, where she'll rendezvous w/ once + future love: Eden [cf "Rappaccini"], America another Hawthornian utopia à la MARBLE FAUN ruined by too-human occupiers), returning to room (following passage thru ghostly open door: both sexual + spiritual channel, former made explicit in Gerald’s climactic "Are you ready to open doors to [your lover] that you’ve kept locked from me?") to see locket floating down to mantle, containing [her] portrait (actually lookalike ancestor Nora Holbrook: mature self-img bestowed on recent psg, + her connection to history/archetype); Gerald also by [downstairs] mantle + portrait, of house-builder Col Jaffrey Pyncheon (animus to Nora-anima; hearth in both cases spiritual center of home, w/ cruel JP below [humanity/America’s lowly character] + lovely NH above [transcendent potential]), Hannah remarking on bloodstained armchair (luxury at a cost) + "illustrious male ancestors who died in it" (gloating tone probably deserved), asserting "man buried beneath house" (mature i.d. bearing burden of curse/history + waiting to emerge) will have his will (inevitability of maturation, profligate GP trying to prolong irresponsible youth), neither knowing location of coveted vault (wmn’s genitals) containing fortune (valuation of similarly buried feminine gender + generative pwr, neglect of which made H sourpuss).

Next night (absence of day scenes dream-orientation of drama), Alice predicts arrival of Jonathan Maule (own "buried man" aka regressive masculinity – literally, on discovering he descendant of Nora’s archaic lover), who’s enchanted by her harpsichord outside (mating call for lovers instinctually drawn to each other); Gerald (pumping him for info on "vault," nudge nudge) + Jon discuss past (family feud begun 1690, before house: structure embodiment of pre-conscious dispute – contradictory human nature) + Pyncheons’ history of exploiting Maules (architect of house: consciousness in which story takes place, nemesis own animalistic tendency undermining more "constructive" [reproductive] aims), especially blacksmith Matthew (P’s occupations unmentioned: psychic entity oppressing greater whole), who cursed P’s to "drink blood" (like vamps, leeching off family: relationship btwn similarly divided/adversarial un/consc + complex sim’y draining ego) after losing legal suit (in P-controlled court: superego containing id, as sexually repressed Gerald Alice), Jon pointing out portrait’s red-running lips on exit (stigmata, "bloody lips" post virginity-loss feared by Gerald [traditional P fate feminizing them] but desired by biological-clock Alice).

On way out, Jon interviews Alice (next step in resolving issue colloquy btwn not-the-self [psychological convenience able to do what defensive ego cannot] + anima; in garden: healthy, generative, relational aims vs Gerald’s self-serving) on harpsichord melody (remembered from his grandmother: connection to creative fem tradition), both sharing precognitive memory of other ("I'd known you since you were born…or before that," actor Richard Dennings in fact having 12 yrs on Garland: mythical-mystical oneness of male-female principle in each’s pre-conscious); she later drawn back to garden by breeze (natural impulse - pull of history/complex twd resolution) to ghost-hunk by well (phallus + yoni) who turns into Jon on embrace (attraction to timeless masculine archetype resolved in erotic union; intrigue btwn families similarly eternal struggle attendant w/ becoming couple), who relates ancestry: Alice’s grandmother Nora H to marry Matt Maule (chronology off by 60-80 yrs time-lessness of story?) before he hanged (the body/Self in suspension during execution of dream) by Col Jaffrey, who coveted his land (oedipal intent, accusing him of witchcraft true to most actual historical motives) – dialog overseen by eavesdropping Gerald (in window overlooking garden à la God + Price himself in previous story, drama below similar oedipal scheme to overthrow Daddy + gain his wmn).

Alice breaks embrace (cinematography suddenly going murky-dark after previously TV-overlit, following Gerald’s near-incestuous Hannah-clinch in window-heaven, like thot balloon revealing true/mythological nature of "earthly" characters’ actions), then follows call again to basement (to successively lower regions of property, aka mind: "foundation" of complex), where written YOU MUST NOT LEAVE (importance of dream-play to continue, unseen hand the will o/t Self) + where G+H break trance till drawn upstairs by ghost-harpsichord (program playing self out despite intrusions); G goads Matt M till quake cracks walls + ceiling (suppressed consciousness threatening structure of unconscious before "buried" material uncovered) + blood drips from fissures (à la lips: house = head [à la "Usher" model], and labia: anticipation of further intrusions), whereupon A faints (interior bleeding aka menstruation [à la "Heidegger’s" dripping tomb water], her KO mind clearing self in preparation for new life/awareness; next, jarringly brief non-sequitur shot of Jon w/ locket telegraphic condensation of dream-meaning into single img: not-Alice held in protective possession of beloved Not-the-Father w/ chaste non-interest in her "vault").

Gerald pours water for Alice, which turns to blood (from well in which Matt M apparently hanged [fetus w/ umbilical-cord noose: love prevented from being born now trying to project self into world] + w/ which plaster mixed [house second (not-the-)womb]: built of/on death), then digs up obvious seam in cellar floor (hymen, to which G oblivious till now + behind which lies riches) to find skeleton, missing forearm (castrated/incomplete: self-revelation, as contemporaneous climactic Mr Sardonicus + its inspiration, Psycho), under which is map (missing part key to solution: losing fierce, frustrated animus [bad phallus associated w/ death] will resolve impotence); Alice sees him pickaxe Hannah (eliminating bad anima, herself frustrated in brother’s absence [replaying origin of trauma in archaic fe/male separation]), so thrown in coffin (her second death; also, uniting past + present erotic drives: bridging oedipal + romantic attractions), locket bleeding sympathetically (wmn’s blood sacrament bringing great change; complement to bleeding Jaffrey pic, latter indicating justice but not correction) when her hand caught in lid alerting Jon to trouble (in rightful property/mind: anima threatened, his/men’s project to make transition into adulthood/romance w/o submerging own femininity).

Map indicates lever opening vault behind Jaffrey portrait (revealing workings behind archetypal bad-animus) from which emerges missing arm (remnant of repressed phallus/male pwr divorced from ability to love/create) as house quakes again (seismic nature of revelation, again shaking "foundation" of patriarchy), Jon led downstairs by spirit/intuition (he positively feminized, following traditionally fem attribute à la witchcraft ancestor) to rescue Alice from crypt (she/anima reborn, he again performing fem function) while Gerald’s mouth drips blood (also feminized) from choking hand; J+A escape (mutual rebirth, they new + improved G+H similarly born/e in/from house [cf Last Man, where blood again sacrament in creation of new society predicated on VP death]) as structure collapses + curse effectively ended (tho lovers w/o "deed to land in Maine worth millions" G seeking: recreating paradise right here, on land rightfully his [boo to that: problem that man assumed land/wmn "his" in first place, indication film/society still has way to go before finally getting it right]).