[Children Laughing]
[Honking Horn]
- [Tires Screeching] - [Loud Crash]
[Barks]
[Speaking Korean]
Easy. Are you all right?
I didn't see you till the last second. You shouldn't play in the road like that.
Wait a minute. I want my bag.
Here. Hold it. You wanna take that.
I was on my way back to camp, you know, from an aid station.
Not so fast, kids. Easy.
[Girl Speaking Korean]
[Korean]
Please don't fight. Okay. Don't fight.
- Please, I hate coming home to a fight. - [Korean]
I don't suppose anybody speaks English here, huh?
English? You speak English?
You speak English? I speak a little Korean...
but just enough to get my face slapped.
[Groans] Can I have that bag, please?
The bag. Yeah. That's it. That's the one. On the floor. Right. With the red cross.
Thank you.
I'm a doctor. You know? Doctor?
How can I make you understand "doctor"?
Maybe if I sent you a bill or an old magazine.
Here. Look. See? I'm with the 4077 th.
4077. You know?
American army hospital. G.I. Joe. You know?
The good guys. Doris Day.
#You smile, a song begins You speak, and I hear violins #
# It's magic ##
Oh, thank you. Thank you.
No offense, ma'am, but the water here has enough germs in it you could sell it by the slice.
[Shouting In Korean]
Please don't holler. I have an enormous pain in my head.
It's really enormous. You could sell advertising space on it.
You know? Advertising? #Halo, everybody, Halo ##
The 4077. It's about 20 miles south of here in Oijongbu.
Oh. Oijongbu.
- Oijongbu. - Oijongbu. Oijongbu. You know?
Oijongbu, Korea. Right?
All right. I'm writing to them. I'm telling them to come and get me because I'm hurt.
I must be, because I'm a doctor, and it says right here I'm hurt.
I want somebody to take this note to the 4077 th in Oijongbu.
- Oijongbu. - Oijongbu. Fast. As fast as you can go.
Please. Go fast. Go as fast as you can.
- Does she know where Oijongbu is? - Oijongbu?
Oh, great.
Uh-oh.
Uh, we may have a little problem here, folks.
My head is bleeding. I'm sweating.
My pulse feels like it's playing "The Minute Waltz."
Oh. Look at him. And I thought I was in trouble.
What you may have here is you may have a seat at a public concussion.
[Korean]
I gotta hold on. I don't want to lose consciousness.
I have a feeling if I go to sleep here, I'm gonna wake up at the family plot in Maine.
People come from all over the state to look at our tombstones.
The Pierces have been in Maine since 1680.
Some of them are dead now.
1680! Huh.
We came over early.
Alexander Pierce played piano in the cocktail lounge on the Mayflower.
But getting back to me, concussion-wise...
just talking off the top of my possibly late, great skull...
Oh, thanks.
I have eight bones in my head.
You do too. It's notjust because I make $400 a month.
But what my problem is now, mainly, is that one of my bones may have split two for one.
You'd be getting a check soon if you had stock in my head.
[Groans]
Believe me, this hurts me a lot more than it hurts me.
But enough of this technical talk.
Putting it simply, what has happened is I have suffered a blow...
to my occipital bone right where it articulates with the parietal.
What that's called is that's called a contrecoup.
[Groans Softly]
See, what's happened here is that my brain has sloshed over to the other side of my skull...
and is right now, even while I'm talking to you, turning purple.
You may have noticed certain purple patches of literary excess in my spoken word.
But don't worry. I'll keep it clean in front of the children.
Actually, class...
it is a medical fact that there is no danger of dying...
if you fall asleep while you have a concussion.
On the other hand, I have a reason for staying awake...
which is that I'm afraid I'll die if I fall asleep while I have a concussion.
I'm just gonna keep talking, all right?
I remember at a party once in college I got sick on beer.
So, what happened was this football player...
this big football player came over to me...
this guy named, uh, Tank O'Melinski...
Big guy. You may remember him. He was almost made all-American.
Yeah. That's the one. So, anyway, uh...
Tank came over and he said, "Hold onto yourself."
He said, "Hang on to reality. Don't get sick.
If you let yourself go, you're finished. Just hold on."
I threw up all over his shoes.
Nice guy. Beat the hell out of me.
Did I tell you that th-th-the skull has eight bones?
It does, you know. Have I ever lied to you?
The occipital, the temporal...
uh, the frontal, two temporal, sphenoid, ethmoid, two parietal.
Why do I have the feeling I'm losing you? Look, forget about my skull.
Forget about my concussion. A person needs a concussion like he needs a hole in the head.
Let's keep it light. # I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy #
# Yankee Doodle do or die #
I can't dance. My head hurts.
# I can't dance My head hurts #
# I can't dance My head hurts ##
That smells terrific.
You'd laugh if I told you what I have a taste for right now. You ready?
A small piece of whitefish...
or some herring in sour cream with onions.
Marinated herring. Mmm.
When I was in medical school trying to remember how many bones I have in my head...
I spent an untold number of hours at the fabulous Sol and Sol's Delicatessen.
Not the Sol and Sol's on Third Avenue. The original Sol and Sol's.
They were brothers. Sol and Sol.
Nobody could ever figure out why their parents gave them both the same name.
Anyway, after a day of cutting up the odd cadaver...
and while the parts and organs of the body were rattling around in my head...
I would dissect a whitefish.
You may have your moments that you hold dear...
my good sir, madam, ma'am, children, fellow chickens.
Your hearts may flutter as your flag unfurls.
Your breaths may quicken to your national anthem...
but for myself, I shall never forget the ease, the grace, the earnestness...
with which that whitefish gave itself up to me.
One eye turned chastely toward its plate.
The other staring unconcerned at its consumer: Me, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, M.D.
"Mental Deficient."
As casually... almost thoughtlessly...
Yes, [Chuckles] Even wantonly...
I devoured it.
And without a murmur of dissent...
without so much as a whitefish whimper... it gave itself up to me.
Its very molecules of protein melding with my own until today. That whitefish sings to you.
# I'm a Yankee Doodle Herring #
#Yankee Doodle, do or die #
Not bad, huh? You thought I was gonna be lousy.
#Yankee Doodle went to London riding on a pony #
# I am that Yankee Doodle boy-y-y-y-y ##
I always had certain problems with pitch.
Though it's very hard when I'm half dead like this.
I'll be much better later when I'm immortal.
Well, enough about me. Let's talk about you. How do you like me so far?
- I wanted to say something. What was it? - [Man Speaking Korean]
[Korean]
No, I'll think of it. Don't help me.
Uh, Yankee Doodle, occipital, whitefish...
Oh. Oh, yeah. I remember. Sol and Sol's. Yeah.
They had the most fantastic waitress in there.
I mean fantastic.
Her name was Lefty.
I think she was, uh, Sol's daughter.
Sol's. Not Sol's. I went with her my last year at medical school.
After she finished work, I'd sneak her into the dorm.
What a terrific kid.
And talk about your parts of the body.
This girl was built like a brick autopsy.
I'm making you crazy, right?
I'll tell you later. Here comes the wife.
For me? Oh. It's some moonshine.
Thank you. That's very generous of you.
I really shouldn't drink it though. Maybe just a little.
- [Korean] - [Korean]
[Coughing] That's, uh, terrific.
Battery acid, right?
- [Children Giggling] - [Coughing]
Beautiful kids. I wish I had something for you.
Some "presento" or something. I don't have a present.
Oh, wait. Maybe I do. Wait a minute. In my bag.
You're, uh, brother and sister, right?
I'm an only child. No siblings.
I guess after they had me my parents decided not to "sibble" anymore.
Here we go.
It's not much, but it's really nothing.
We fool around at the hospital with these a lot.
Uh-huh. I think you better blow this up. I'm not a big fan of fainting.
Just think of it as a balloon with fingers.
Or an udder in search of a cow.
That's "udderly" ridiculous. If they don't come soon and put a Band-Aid on my memory...
it's gonna all come spilling out.
Good. That's enough. Let me have it.
Why do I have the feeling that my entire life is knocking on my tongue...
trying to come out between my teeth?
There we go.
There. [Chuckling]
[Korean]
Eh? Oh, yeah. Good. Okay.
Go outside and play where there's plenty of fresh air and land mines.
We're not taking those land mines with us when we go, you know. They're yours.
Kids. Nice.
I had a nice "kidhood."
You knew where you stood in those days.
Franklin Roosevelt was always the president. Joe Louis was always the champ.
And Paul Muni played everybody.
Eloise McKay. Eighth grade. You have to understand. Those were the old days.
We were brought up to think that girls were different, and I was young.
I mean, girls were martians.
Eloise McKay let me touch her slip. She brought it to school in a box...
and I took it behind the science building and touched it.
That was it. The whole transaction could have been conducted by mail.
I hope I haven't shocked anyone. I mean, we're all adults here.
By the way, I'm a doctor, and I can tell you for certain that you're pregnant.
And we know what causes that nowadays too.
The smartest doctor I ever knew was Samuel Sacks, head of our medical school.
What a terrific guy. I remember one day a student was talking to him, and he said...
"Doctor, what would you do if a patient died just as he was leaving your office?"
Without missing a beat, Sacks said, "I'd turn him around so it would look like he was coming in."
A lovely man.
Do you know who I hated? Mrs. Tomassino, my geometry teacher.
She terrified me. She stood over me in the front row with this big yardstick.
I used to look up into her nose.
She had three nostrils.
I guess she thought it was symmetrical or something.
But she was really nice if I got something wrong.
She was very helpful. She'd look down at me and say...
- [Shouts] "You got it wrong!" - [Dog Barking]
- No, that's all right. - [Barking]
- That's okay. She's not here now. - [Barks]
I really didn't need that yelling.
I wish I wasn't standing so close to me when I said that.
They really ought to be here by now.
Somebody from the camp. I'm gonna go wait in the lobby.
Uh, just talk among yourselves, huh?
Maybe they're never coming.
Maybe this is it for me.
I'm Ronald Colman, and this is my Lost Horizon.
And you're Margo.
I guess you never saw that movie, eh?
You probably never see any.
You really ought to, you know. There have been some great ox movies.
The Ox-Bow Incident...
A Yank at Oxford...
"The Wizard of Ox"?
"Cow Green was My Valley"? No, that's cheap.
[Groans]
Come on, Radar.
Come on. Somebody.
Anybody.
Nothing. Nobody. I can't understand it.
Sorry. Here.
I don't wanna get any dirt on your wall-to-wall dirt.
[Chuckles] There's a nice bit of chauvinism.
But I always say, there's no "vinism" like chauvinism.
# Like no "vinism" I know ##
Merman.
Did I tell you I used to have a practice back in Boston?
Before I came over here to work for Harry Truman.
The doctor tell you to stay away from tobacco? [Laughing]
You know the great thing about Boston?
It's where all the musicals come to try out before they go on to Broadway.
- [Korean] - Yeah. To fix the book. Add a few songs.
Stuff like that. I saw all the great ones there.
Oklahoma. King and I. South Pacific.
[In A Deep Voice] # Some enchanted evening #
#You may meet a stranger #
You know what was great about that? The way he did the ending.
# Once you have found her never let her go #
# Once you have found her #
# Never let her #
- # Go # - [Dog Howling]
I think your dog is better.
I didn't just see hits there though, you know.
Before I left, I saw this real turkey.
A musical. Up Your Love.
I remember the big song from that show... a ballad.
#You're mine, I'm yours We're ours #
#Who but you, who but me could be us better than we ##
It was a real turkey. Closed at intermission.
I love the theater, but I never come late.
That's why the doctor is a tramp.
And what's wrong with drama?
Watch this. Watch this. You're gonna love this one. Watch this.
Laurence Olivier. Richard III.
Now is the winter of our discontent...
made glorious summer by this sun of York.
Now that's really good. Let's hear your dog do that.
Come on. Bring him in. Come on.
[Man Speaking Korean]
Huh? What? Forgive me. I don't understand what you're saying.
I'm sorry. I didn't know I was standing in the dining car.
Can I help you? [Groans]
[Korean]
- [Woman Laughing] - [Korean]
- What? - [Korean]
Oh. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I don't know why nobody's here yet.
I'm sorry. Sometimes the war hots up and the hospital gets very busy, you know.
Then at other times you could shoot off a cannon in there.
Of course, when they do that, then the war hots up all over again.
- [Korean] - I get the feeling I'm speaking in ever-diminishing circles...
until I disappear up my own mouth-hole.
- [Korean] - Thank you. Oh, this is wonderful.
I'm glad I called ahead for a reservation.
- [Korean] - [Korean]
Mmm. Good.
- Aaah. Hot. Spicy. - [Korean]
Your baby's gonna need asbestos diapers.
[Huffs]
Pretty soon, huh?
Don't you sometimes wonder about babies?
I mean, how do they know what to do in there?
They start out looking like little, hairless mice, and they wind up looking like us.
How's it all work?
I've... I've held a beating heart in my hand.
I've poked into kidneys and crocheted them together again.
I've pushed air into collapsed lungs like beat-up old pump organs.
I've squeezed and probed and prodded my way...
through hundreds of miles of gut and goo...
and I don't know what makes us live.
I mean, what keeps us in motion?
What keeps the heart beating without anybody rewinding it?
Why do the cells reproduce and "re-re-reproduce" with such gay abandon?
What force brought us together in such fantastic complexity?
I've seen a lot of bodies...
and they never cease to amaze me.
Did you ever see Ann Corio or Margie Hart?
Strippers.
For a long time it was a toss-up whether I'd marry a stripper or a whitefish.
I remember Polly O'Day.
She worked with a parrot. He didn't help her strip or anything.
While she got undressed, he stood on the side and talked dirty.
It was an exciting act. What a body.
She was built great too.
[Korean]
Yeah. But what I don't understand is how she got that way...
anymore than how we did.
Look at your hand. It's one of the most incredible instruments in the universe.
Of all the bones in the body, one fourth are in the hand.
Forget the hand. Look at your thumb...
that wondrous mechanism that separates us from the other animals.
The world-famous opposable thumb, that amazing device...
that has transported more students to college than the Boston post road.
Ideal for sucking, especially as a baby.
And lauded in song and story as the perfect instrument for pulling out a plum.
Or, in the case of the Caesars, for holding it down for the gladiator to die...
or holding it up, which means "See you later at the orgy."
My friends, for getting up and down the pike, in your pie, in your eye...
I give you the thumb.
Have you any idea, Farmer Brown, of the incredible complexity...
of this piece of human apparatus?
[Korean]
Of course not. Never having spent any time at Sol and Sol's...
swilling borscht and jamming Latin into your brain...
while trying to imagine if Lefty the waitress is wearing a garter belt...
you have no idea of the balletic interplay of parts that make up the human thumb.
The flexor ossis metacarpi pollicis flexes the metacarpal bone.
That is, draws it inward over the palm...
thus producing the movement of opposition...
and the Boy Scout salute.
Because of this magical engineering, we could do this.
And this.
[Coughing] And this.
But our greatest triumph comes not from flexing the metacarpal bone...
and making a fist, which always seems to be thirsting to be clenched...
No, no, no, no, no.
Our greatest moment is when we open our hand...
cradling a glass of wine, cupping a loved one's chin.
And the best...
the most expert of all...
keeping all the objects of our life in the air at the same time.
My friends, for your amusement and bemusement, I give you the human person.
Thumb and fingers flexing madly, straining to keep aloft the leaden realities of life...
ignorance, death and madness.
Thus we create for ourselves the illusion that we have power...
that we are in control, that we are... loved.
[Korean]
Thank you. For my next trick, I will attempt to become stiff as a board.
I hate to eat and faint, but I don't know if I can even make it down to my knees.
[Horn Honking]
That's him. It's gotta be. Radar!
- [Dog Barking] - Lassie, it's Radar!
I'll be right there. Wait a second. Give me my stuff, will you?
Wait a minute. Don't... Wait a minute. My shoes. Thank you. Thank you.
[Korean]
Thank you. The love I'll leave with you.
[Korean]
Take care. Good-bye, Margo.
[Vehicle Departing]
- Anybody home? [Korean] - [All Speaking Korean]
You get it? "I have returned to Korea."
I brought you some "presentos." For vegetables. Very good.
- [Korean] - You're welcome.
Kids, some comics and some candy.
Not very good for you. You better eat the comics and read the candy.
Sir, some tobacco.
I think you'll find it's a little better than the manure you've been smoking.
- [Korean] - Thank you.
Here's my name and my unit in Korean.
I want you to contact me when it's time for the baby, okay?
- [Korean] - Boy, that smells delicious.
What are you cooking? What is that?
- [Korean] - Oh, thank you.
That smells so good.
Mmm. Meat. Where did you get meat?
Wait a minute. Where's the dog?
- [Dog Barking] - Oh, it's delicious.
What do you put in it?