“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 96: post-mortem

In our previous episode of this Pall Mall* Award-nominated memoir, Arnold Schnabel, having traveled back in time and across the world to 1933 in the Philippines, finds himself attacked by the brutish and drunken Jimmy, the husband of Mrs. Biddle. Jimmy stumbles and crashes through the screening of the second-floor veranda and breaks his neck in the muddy yard below as the tropical rains come pouring down…

*“A smoother, less irritating smoke.”

We went downstairs. Her living room looked much the same, that is as if William Powell or Carole Lombard might walk in at any second, except now everything was bright and new and polished. Again though, everything was in black or white or shades of grey. It was still only late afternoon, but the windows were almost dark with that thick crashing rain outside.

Tommy came in from the porch just as we reached the middle of the living room. He closed his glistening umbrella and stuck it in an ivy-patterned vase in the foyer.

“If it’s any consolation, death must have been instantaneous,” he said.

“The poor man,” said Mrs. Biddle.

“May I get you a drink, Mrs. Biddle?” said Tommy.

“Oh, Tommy, look at you, your trousers are ruined.”

“Don’t worry about my trousers now.”

“And your shoes. Your lovely white shoes.”

“I’m going to make you a drink,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down. You’ve had a shock.”

“I don’t think I can sit.”

“Mr. Schnabel —” said Tommy. He was heading toward the drinks cabinet.

“Yes?”

He made a movement with his head, but I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it, if anything.

He stopped, and pointed to the larger of the two sofas. Then he pointed to Mrs. Biddle, and then back to the sofa.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh. Mrs. Biddle, come on, sit down.”

“Will you sit with me?”

“Sure.”

I sort of guided her over to the sofa, although God knows she knew where it was, and she sat down. I sat next to her, to her left. She put her hand on mine.

“Will you have a cocktail, Mr. Schnabel?” asked Tommy.

“Okay,” I said.

To tell the truth I really felt like I could use one at this point.

“Whiskey and soda?”

“Sure.”

“Ice? I can go get some from the ice box.”

“I’ll just have it the way Mrs. Biddle is having it.”

“No ice then.”

Tommy went to work preparing three drinks, using a quart of Old Forester and a large glass soda syphon. Outside the rain drummed down, like a million tiny bongo drums played by a million tiny madmen.

“Should we get the boys to bring him in?” said Mrs. Biddle, her voice breaking slightly.

“Not until the police get here,” said Tommy over his shoulder.

“The police?” she said. “Will that be necessary?”

“It would probably be for the best in the long run."

“I suppose you’re right,” said Mrs. Biddle. “I hate to think of him lying out there in that mud.”

“Can’t be helped,” said Tommy. “Oh. Does anyone want a little something extra?” he asked.

He turned and held up a small brown bottle, taking the cork from it as he did so.

“Yes, Tommy,” said Mrs. Biddle. “For my nerves, thank you.”

“Mr. Schnabel? A touch of laudanum?”

“Well, just a little,” I said.

I wasn’t quite sure if any of this was really happening, so I saw no harm.

“Will you ring the police, Tommy?” asked Mrs. Biddle. “I don’t think I could bear it.”

“Certainly. But may I make a suggestion?” he said, bringing three tall drinks over to us on a silver tray.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Biddle.

“Let me telephone Dr. Rodriguez. I’ll tell him the situation, and we’ll let him handle it.”

“Do you think that’s best?” she asked.

Tommy laid the tray on the coffee table in front of us.

“Yes, I think so,” he said. “Bottoms up now.”

We all took a glass. Tommy didn’t sit, but stood with his drink on the other side of the table.

“To Jimmy,” he said.

We all drank.

“Well, I must say I needed that,” said Tommy. “I’ll telephone Rodriguez now.”

He took his drink over to a side table on which a white telephone sat.

“Light me a cigarette, Arnold,” said Mrs. Biddle. “One of those in that box there.”

The box was the engraved wooden one I had seen here before. The table lighter in the shape of the fat Buddha was there also. I opened the box and offered it to her, she took out a cigarette, and I gave her a light with the smiling philosopher.

“Won’t you have one, Arnold?” she said, in a soft voice.

I think I actually sighed, because I really did want one. But I had gotten this far today without one, I had gone through so much, somehow I felt like holding out, whether any of this was real or not, so I told her no thanks. I have to say I think the laudanum-spiked highball was a factor in my being able to abstain.

“Hello,” said Tommy, speaking in a loud voice into the telephone receiver. “Hola. May I speak to Dr. Rodriguez, please. Tell him it’s Tommy, from the Biddle plantation.” He put his hand over the phone, and looked to us. “He’ll be right on.”

“Tell him to hurry, Tommy,” said Mrs. Biddle.

“I will,” said Tommy. “Oh. Dr. Rodriguez, Tommy here. Yes, how are you? Listen, there’s been an accident, and Mrs. Biddle asks that you come right over. Yes. It’s Mr. Biddle. Jimmy, yes, he fell, and, well, he broke his neck I’m afraid. Yes, he’s dead I’m sorry to say.” He listened for a few moments and then put his hand over the mouthpiece again and looked toward Mrs. Biddle. “He wants to know how it happened.”

“He stumbled and fell off the second floor veranda,” said Mrs. Biddle.

Tommy repeated this down the telephone line.

There was a pause, and then he said, “Yes, he had been drinking I fear. Yes. Yes. Very sad. Yes. Listen, Dr. Rodriguez, do you think you could, um, deal with the police concerning this. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Muchas gracias, doctor, adiós.”

He hung up the phone.

“Well, that’s done,” said Tommy. “He said he’ll drive right over, and after he has, uh, assessed the situation, he’ll call the appropriate person in the police.”

“Oh good,” said Mrs. Biddle.

Tommy started to walk over towards us with his drink.

“Oh wait,” said Mrs. Biddle.

Tommy stopped.

"April,” said Mrs. Biddle.

“Oh, right,” said Tommy.

She turned to me.

“My daughter,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

“Tommy —” she said.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Tommy. “I’ll call. Shall I — shall I tell her?”

“Yes," said Mrs. Biddle. "Or, no. I’ll tell her. But dial the number for me, will you please, Tommy?”

Tommy went back to the telephone.

“May I make another suggestion, though?” he said. He held his drink in his left hand, and with his right hand he draped the telephone cord over his left wrist.

“Of course,” said Mrs. Biddle.

With his right hand Tommy picked up the telephone and brought it over to us.

“Let her stay at her little friend's house for a few hours. At least until they take the — until they take Jimmy away.”

“Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. Thank you, Tommy. You’re such a brick.”

“It’s nothing.”

He laid his drink down on the table, and, still standing, he dialed a number on the white telephone.

“You’re a brick, too, Arnold,” said Mrs. Biddle, patting my hand. “I want to thank you so much.”

“For what?” I said.

Tommy, cradling the receiver to his ear, reached down with his left hand to take a cigarette from the box.

“Just for everything,” Mrs. Biddle said.

Tommy, waiting for someone to answer on the other end, picked up the fat smiling Buddha and gave himself a light.

(Continued here. And kindly turn to the right hand side of this page for an up-to-date listing of all other possible episodes of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, a Merv Griffin Production.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode Ninety: in which Frank makes a proposition...

Previously in our exclusive serialization of the “director’s cut” of this unqualified masterpiece from the inexhaustible Remington portable of Larry Winchester (“The one writer who makes Philip K. Dick seem normal, who makes Melville seem shallow, who makes Proust seem terse” -- Harold Bloom), Frank revealed to our heroes that Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had all been abducted by his alien race, the Swampoodlers, who had “planted in their brains these lovely ideas, whose import boiled down was really just: hey, don’t be a fucking asshole all your life. That’s all. Simple message…”

“Okay,” said Dick. “Fine. So why are we here? Because if we’re supposed to set up some new religion or what-have-you I think you might have the wrong people.”

A smattering of laughter made its away around the Rat Pack.

“Y’know, fellas,” continued Dick, getting just a little bit pissed off, “I like to think I can take a joke with the best of them, but -- Jesus Christ --”

All the Rat Packers chuckled again, except for Joey, who said, “Hey, relax, pal! Wait’ll you hear our proposition.”

Just then Johnnie Ray came to the end of his act. He thanked everyone very much for being such a lovely audience, and he sent out a special hello to Frank and Dean and Joey and Sammy and Peter and Richard Conte and their charming guests. The band played him off the stage, and then segued into a steaming but cool jam of “Fernando’s Hideaway”.

“What’s this here proposition?” asked Harvey.

“To put it bluntly, my friend,” said Frank, “we would like to offer you good people a piece of the territory.”

“What territory?” asked Harvey.

“Why, the Earth of course,” said Frank.

“Holy shit,” said Harvey.

“You mean,” said Daphne, “like -- rulers of the Earth?”

“Not like,” said Frank. “Precisely.”

“Fuck,” said Harvey.

“Someone needs to take control down there,” said Frank. “Of course we’ll back you up. Spaceships, death rays, mass hypnosis -- whatever you need, all you gotta do is ask. And it goes without saying we will grant you virtual immortality on the physical plane -- barring unforeseen severe accidents, of course.”

Dick was the first to reply, after a pause.

“Frank, with all due respect, is this a joke?”

“No joke, my friend. For many years we have had our eyes on you three. And on the lovely young Hope too of course and what a shame she could not be here tonight.”

Harvey tapped a cigarette on the edge of his ashtray and muttered under his breath:

“Fuck this shit.”

“You see, my friends,” said Frank, “not only have we have been monitoring your progress for years, we have also on occasion done what we could to assure your progress. Harvey, it was no accident you broke your leg jumping out of that chopper, or that you just happened to burst in on Major Green doing the dirty with that nurse, thereby assuring that you would be relieved of all future combat duty.”

Dick and Daphne stared at Harvey quizzically. He would have to explain it all to them later, or let them read his memoirs.

“And, Dick,” continued Frank, “and you, Daphne -- I mean, not to take anything away from you guys, did you think it was just luck -- not to mention your not inconsiderable resourcefulness -- that you two have slipped through all those jams of yours unscathed? Brawls, shoot-outs, riots, revolutions, wars? Why do you think we arranged for you two to come to New Mexico? Why did you hook up with Harvey, and Hope? Yes, my friends, you three, with the aforementioned Hope, are the most advanced humans -- or in your case Mrs. Ridpath, half-human -- on your planet. You mentioned royalties before, Mr. Ridpath. Well, perhaps it’s only fitting that you very wonderful and may I say magnificent people should be the new -- and you should forgive my choice of words here -- the new and very all-powerful Royal Family of the Earth! And, may I say, your children, who I am most sure will be just as beautiful and talented as you good people -- starting with the child that you, Mr. Ridpath, have engendered in the aforementioned very lovely and nubile Miss Hope Johnstone --”

“Excuse me,” said Daphne, “what?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Ridpath; you were not aware of Mr. Ridpath’s and Hope’s little tryst the other night --”

“What?” said Daphne.

“Yeah,” said Dick, “what?”

“Please Mrs. Ridpath,” said Frank, “do not be jealous. Dick didn’t know what he was doing.”

“What?”

“We abducted him.”

“You what?” said Dick.

“In your sleep,” said Frank. “Along with Hope. And under hypnosis we had you two shall we say make like the beast with two backs.”

“Makin’ whoopee,” said Sammy.

“Slam bam,” said Joey.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Dean.

“And a good show it was, too,” said Peter.

“I’ve seen better,” said Richard Conte.

“Dick!” said Daphne.

“Darling,” said Dick, “this is all news to me.”

“Like I said,” said Frank, “you were both hypnotized. Please do not hold it against Dick, Mrs. Ridpath. You see, we had to see if he and Hope were compatible. Because it’s all part of the master plan, to breed a new Royal Family of the Earth. We hope that you, Mrs. Ridpath, and Harvey also will be willing to -- um, oh how shall I put it --”

“Hey, wait a minute, pal --” said Harvey.

Daphne grabbed her purse, tossed her cigarette case and lighter into it, and stood up.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve had quite enough of this. Goodbye.”

She turned and walked off through the tables.

Dick quickly jumped up, not forgetting to pocket his own cigarettes and lighter, and hustled over to catch up with her and take her arm. She stopped, and fixed him with her flashing hazel eyes.

“What?” she said.

“Wait,” said Dick.

“What for?


“Well -- for me.”

She continued to look at him for a long moment. In the background the band was now playing “Caravan”.

“These people stink, Dick,” she said. “And I think their whole set-up stinks. And I don’t want any part of it. I want to go home. I want to go back to the earth.”

“All right then,” said Dick. “Let’s go.”

She paused again, then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Oh, just wait till I get you home, mister.”

Harvey had gotten up also, and he came over to them.

“You guys ain’t leavin’ without me,” he said.

“Right,” said Dick. “Well, let’s go then.”

Without looking back they walked on through the crowded room to the entrance. They came to the maître d’s stand, where Henry Silva stood very seriously with his arms folded, but before they could go past he came out from behind his little podium, blocking the path to the exit.

“May I ask where you’re going, sir?”

“Anywhere but here, buddy,” said Dick.

Henry held up his left hand.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, sir.”

With his right hand he unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, revealing the butt of a pistol protruding from his red cummerbund. He put his hand on the pistol but did not draw it.

Frank and his friends had all gotten up from the table and followed close behind Dick and Daphne and Harvey.

Dick looked from Henry back to the Rat Pack, who were all spread out in a semi-circle about six feet away.

“Mr. Ridpath,” said Frank, “Dick, let’s be reasonable. Where do you think you’re going and how do you think you’re going to get there?”

Daphne opened her gold lamé purse and looked into it.

“That’s it,” said Frank. “Have a cigarette. It will calm your nerves. Soothe your hurt feelings. Okay, I’ll be the first to admit, maybe we were just a bit out of line. You know, hypnotizing Dick and Hope and all, and having them, uh --”

“Do the nasty,” said Joey.

“Zip it, Joey,” said Frank.

“I’m zipped,” said Joey.

Daphne stuck her hand into the purse.

“Here,” said Frank, taking out his thin gold lighter and stepping forward, “allow me, Mrs. Ridpath.”

In a fluid half-second Daphne drew Dick’s Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 out of her purse, cocked it, and laid its muzzle right in the center of Frank’s broad forehead.

Everyone froze.

(Click here for our next thrilling chapter. And kindly turn to the right hand side of this page for a complete listing of links to all other possible episodes of Larry Winchester’s A Town Called Disdain™, soon to be a major television mini-series event starring Tori Spelling, Shannon Doherty, Jason Priestley, and Luke Perry. A David Susskind Production.)

And now if you please, welcome back to our stage the very talented Miss Helen Shapiro:

“Railroad Train to Heaven”, Part 95: Jimmy

In our previous episode of this sprawling memoir (winner of the Bishop Sheen Award for Young Catholic Literature), our hero Arnold Schnabel found himself transported from 1963 Cape May (New Jersey) to a second-floor screened veranda in the Philippines, circa 1933. He was enjoying high tea with the lovely but unsatisfied Mrs. Biddle as the afternoon rains came crashing down when suddenly her husband Jimmy appears on the porch…

Jimmy said nothing at first. He stood there in his wet linen suit, a faint steam rising up from his great round shoulders. He looked like a man who had played fullback in college but who hadn’t exercised in the fifteen years since his graduation. He swayed just slightly, staring alternately at Mrs. Biddle and myself. His eyes were small but with large black pupils.

Swallowing my bite of butter cookie I stood up, wiped my hand on my trousers and then extended it, my hand, to him.

“How are you?” I said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Of course I couldn’t be absolutely sure of this, as I had no recollection of being in 1933 before, if that was the year we were in, or in the Philippines, if that was where we were.

He stared at my hand.

“Whatcha doin’ here,” he said.

I could now smell the alcohol fumes wafting gently from his large body, admixtured with those of cigars and sweat and what I now recognized as female sexual exudation.

“Mr. Schnabel simply stopped by for a visit,” said Mrs. Biddle behind me.

I brought my unshaken hand down to my side.

“You’re that nut,” said Jimmy, to me.

“Jimmy,” said Mrs. Biddle.

“I heard about you. Railroad man. Went nuts. Are you nuts?”

“Jimmy,” repeated Mrs. Biddle. “Stop it.”

“What are you doin’," he said to her, "having tea with this lunatic?”

“He’s recovered. Or recovering. Be polite. Mr. Schnabel is our guest.”

“I didn’t invite him. I go away for a few drinks at the club and you invite some nut case in for tea.”

“Stop this nonsense, Jimmy.”

“You,” said Jimmy, pointing a large bloated finger at me, “Beat it. Hop it. ‘Fore I throw you out.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Arnold,” said Mrs. Biddle. “You don’t have to go. Jimmy, you’re drunk. Go to your room and lie down.”

“Shut up,” said Jimmy. He was still pointing at me and now he stepped forward and poked me in the chest with that big finger. “Scram,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. I turned to Mrs. Biddle. “Thanks for the tea and sandwiches, Mrs. Biddle. And the cookie.”

“Don’t go, Arnold. Don’t leave me with this beast.”

Suddenly something — I suppose Jimmy’s ham-like paw — shoved mightily against my shoulder and I tripped over the tea table, sending it and the tea service clattering and shattering onto the floor. I staggered several steps but managed not to fall down. Mrs. Biddle screamed, I turned, and Jimmy was rushing toward me making a sound like a man whose arm was being twisted behind his back, but in fact both his arms were raised and his hands were clenched into fists, but fortunately for me he slipped on something, I think it was the silver tea tray, and I stepped to one side as he stumbled past me and crashed through the screening and into that almost solid wall of rain, from which erupted a shrieking bellow like a dog being run over by a truck, cut off abruptly by a muffled but loud wet thump.

I stood there looking at the big jagged hole the man had left in the screening. The only sound now was that of the rain, this wet cacophony as if some ocean in the sky had decided all at once to come crashing down to drown the earth forever.

“Oh my God,” said Mrs. Biddle. “Are you all right, Arnold.”

“Yes, I think so,” I said.

I looked at her, she was still sitting on the wicker sofa, but sitting up very straight, with her fists clenched close to her breast.

“Go look, see if he’s okay. He’s such a bull. I’m sure he’s okay.”

I went over to the edge of the veranda and looked down through the torn space in the screening. Down through the torrents of rain I saw Jimmy’s pale form lying absolutely still face down in the mud of the yard.

“Is he okay?” asked Mrs. Biddle.

“He’s not moving,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

I moved back a bit from the verge of the veranda. I had been getting wet.

“I’ll go down and check on him,” I said.

“Wait. Let me look.”

She got up, stepped over the tea things on the floor, and came over next to me. She put her hand on my arm and leaned forward, looking down.

“He’s not moving,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“He’s not moving at all.”

Continuing to hold tightly onto my arm she leaned farther over, holding her other hand over her forehead to keep the rain out of her eyes.

“I think his neck is broken,” she said. “Look, Arnold.”

I didn’t want to, but I did, shielding my eyes from the rain with my hand. It was true, his head was twisted at an unnatural angle. He looked like some enormous puppet dropped in the mud.

Then we saw a man in a white suit come out of the house, carrying a black umbrella. He came down the steps, went over to Jimmy and knelt down next to him on one knee. All we could see was this large black umbrella, and the bottom half of Jimmy’s unmoving body.

Then the man stood up and tilting the umbrella towards his back, he looked up at us. It was Tommy.

“How is he?” called down Mrs. Biddle.

Tommy called up something but the downpour drowned out his words.

“What?” called Mrs. Biddle. “How is he, Tommy?”
Tommy called louder this time, cupping his hand to the side of his mouth:

“I'm afraid he’s dead, Mrs. Biddle.”

She paused, then straightened up and looked at me.

“It was an accident, Arnold. There was nothing either of us could do."

She had continued to hold onto my arm, but now she let go of it.

(Please go here for our next thrilling chapter. And see the right hand side of this page for a complete listing of links to all available episodes of Arnold Schnabel’s Railroad Train to Heaven™, a Josef Von Sternberg Production.)

“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode Eighty-Nine: "such a night..."

Our previous installment of this great patriotic epic from the battered Remington portable of that living legend Larry Winchester ended with Frank informing Daphne that her father is an alien, a native of that faraway planet called Swampoodle. Daphne’s immediate reaction was to spray a mouthful of Dom Perignon across the table.

The time: September, 1969.

The place: the Samba Room,a swinging night club in an enormous flying saucer somewhere between the earth and the moon, in an alternate dimension known as Fishtown…

Frank whipped out his monogrammed silk display handkerchief with a flourish and offered it to Daphne.

She dabbed her lips with it, handed it back to him, and then said, “Do you mean to say, Frank -- although somehow I doubt that is really is your name -- that I am half space-person?”

“Well, uh -- yeah,” said Frank, stuffing the handkerchief back into his jacket’s breast pocket with a slightly suspect air of insouciance.

“I don’t like this,” said Daphne, staring at no one and nothing in particular. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“You’ll get used to it,” said Richard Conte.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said.

A stillness fell over the table. Johnnie Ray was singing another song (“Such a Night”) but no one at the table was really listening.

“My friends,” said Frank, addressing Daphne, Dick and Harvey, “if I may continue my little disquisition --”

“Oh, please do,” said Daphne.

Frank took a brief sip of his double Manhattan, just to wet his whistle.

“When we Swampoodlers first decided to utilize your fair planet for our fabulous entertainment industry about eight or ten thousand years ago we soon came to a regrettable conclusion, to wit, there was a very good chance you humans would wipe yourselves off the face of the earth, thus blowing our already considerable investment in setting up operations both here in this casino and on the earth. You have no idea of the expense.” He turned to Joey. “What was it, like three billion bucks a square foot, Joe?”

“Closer to four, Frank,” said Joey.

“Almost four billion bucks a square foot just to build this joint. Plus you got no idea all the other expenses. Insurance, taxes, upkeep, salaries --”

“I’m sure it was very expensive,” said Dick.

“As well and also,” said Frank, “we can’t just let the human appetite for destruction put a lot of good people here out of work -- all of the technicians, and the entertainers here like Johnnie up there, the waiters, the cigarette girls --”

“Them girls will never be out of work,” said Joey.

“We gotta protect our investment,” said Frank, “and our jobs. So what we decided to do, we started to -- well -- take an active part in earthling life, just here and there, just to try to, you know, keep things from going completely to hell in a goddam handbasket. For instance, you know that yarn about Moses and the Ten Commandments?”

“I saw the movie,” said Dick.

“That was us,” said Frank, “behind that whole deal. We sat right here at this very table one night and came up with those commandments, all ten of ‘em, thinking, hey, maybe somebody’ll take ‘em seriously! And, over the centuries and on various parts of the earth we did what we could just to try to keep you earthlings from rendering yourselves as extinct and dead and gone as the dinosaurs. You take Confucius for example, the Buddha, Jesus, uh whatsisname -- the little loincloth guy -- Pete --”

“What?” said Peter. He had been eyeballing another passing cigarette girl.

“That little Indian guy,” said Frank.

“What little Indian guy,” said Peter.

“You know, the fucking little guy, with the, the white loincloth --”

“Sabu?” offered Joey

“What?” said Frank. “No, not Sabu.” He looked at Dick. “You see what I got to work with here?”

“Gandhi,” said Harvey.

“Thank you!” said Frank. “Fucking Gandhi, him too.”

“Don’t forget Dr. King,” said Sammy.

“Leave us not forget him,” said Frank, “the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- all these very wonderful wise and holy people, we -- well -- we abducted them I suppose you would call it -- and we planted in their brains these lovely ideas, whose import boiled down was really just: Hey, don’t be a fucking asshole all your life. That’s all. Simple message.”

“’Course,” drawled Dean, “a lot o’ people don’t wanta hear it.”

“This is true,” said Frank. “Our messengers do have a bad habit of getting themselves shot.”

“Or crucified,” said Dean.

“Whatever,” said Frank.

(Go here for our next thrilling chapter. And kindly turn to the right hand column of this page to find a complete listing of all other possible episodes of Larry Winchester’s Schaefer Award-winning A Town Called Disdain™, soon to be a major motion picture starring Dick Powell, Deanna Durbin, and Dan Duryea, a First National Production, produced, written and directed by Larry Winchester.)