["Alfred Hitchcock" theme music]
- Good evening.
[spring uncoils]
I trust I didn't
frighten you unduly.
I customarily pop up
much more quickly,
but my spring is bent.
I also hope you will
excuse this rather
light-hearted
opening for our show.
But tonight's story is some
what different than usual.
I thought that my usual gallows
humor might not be suitable.
Our story takes place in Mexico.
It concerns death and burial
and tells of an eerie battle
between a grave digger
and a courageous woman.
It follows in 60 seconds.
[horn honks]
[dark dramatic music]
- [Female Tourist] No thank you.
- No thanks, we have one.
- This is the cemetery, yes.
Yes, this is the cemetery...
Yes, you come to see the mummies
and you come a long way.
They're here, they're
here, come in, come in.
Admission one peso,
very reasonable.
The only mummies of their kind
on the whole North
American continent.
See for yourself.
You can look right
in the face of death.
They're here.
- Hola, Juan Diaz, Jorge.
- Hola, Ignacio.
- It is a long
climb up that hill.
Come in and rest in the shade.
- I would prefer not to rest
in your shade, coffin maker.
- Why not?
You are burdened
with death yourself.
- Oh but they are sweet
and they are going
to make a happy profit
when I sell them
at the Day of the Dead
celebrations next meek.
- Is my name on one of
those sugar candy skulls?
- Oh sure, Pita,
Dolores, Ramona, Ramona,
it must be here
somewhere, Ignacio.
- No matter, let us
agree, I will not lure you
into my shed and you
will not hurry to find
my sweet death's head
with my name upon it.
Good luck with
your skulls, Juan.
- Good luck with your
coffins, Ignacio.
[laughs]
[ominous music]
[skulls crack]
[Juan coughs]
It was going to
be a great profit,
the best ever for
the Day of the Dead.
- Sit, rest, the
profit is nothing.
The Saint's Day is nothing
if you aren't here.
- I dreamt of--
- I will go for the doctor.
Jorge, stay with your father.
[Juan coughs]
- Jorge, go to the house.
There is a medicine in a bottle.
- The bottle is empty.
- Oh no no, there's
some left, go.
Quickly!
[dark dramatic music]
- You have been visitors
to the kingdom of the dead.
Wasn't that everything
I told you it would be?
- Terrible, thank you I guess.
[coins clank]
[dark dramatic music]
[gates creak]
[dark dramatic music]
[suspenseful music]
- By the sound of the footsteps,
is that not Juan Diaz?
I always guess right.
I can tell the sound
of all my people.
- We are not your people.
- You will be, soon.
Well?
- Alejandro.
- [Alejandro] Yes.
- I wish to pay rent on a grave.
- This grave?
- Perhaps the next one you dig.
- [Alejandro] Which
will be tomorrow.
- Perhaps tomorrow?
- My graves are
expensive to rent,
three pesos for a month.
But if you want to rent
for a year I give you
a real bargain, 30 pesos
for the whole year,
You see what a kind man
I am, lowering my prices.
Of course most people cannot
afford to buy a grave outright.
That is why most of them
are rented as you know.
- You are a rich man.
You are a Christian
man and I know you will
give me two full years
of rent for 40 pesos.
Alejandro, are you listening?
- Yes, I'm listening,
you have 40 pesos.
- Yes.
- You have it with you?
- Yes, here.
- [Alejandro] Bring it down.
Bring it down, bright it down.
[dark dramatic music]
It's only the
catacombs, come in.
If you wanna make a
deal on your terms,
it must be on my territory.
[suspenseful music]
Come in or go away.
- Is that you, Alejandro?
- Me and my friends,
have you met them?
Jose Morales, you remember Jose.
He couldn't keep the
payments on his grave.
So, I brought him down here
with the other mummies.
Carlota Ruiz, she
was before your time.
Has been here 40 years.
Hello Carlota!
Antonio Reyes, you remember,
he was k*lled by the bull.
His wife could not pay
the rent on his grave.
So, here he is.
Josefina Cantina, Chico
Romero, Anjelica Gomez,
this friends, is Juan Diaz.
Do you know what makes
my mummies the only ones
outside of Egypt
that are so fine?
It is the earth, the dry
earth, and the dry air
here in this one city
in all of Mexico.
Put a man in this earth for
one year and when you take
him out he's cured like
a harvest of tobacco.
He will last forever.
They will last forever.
Listen.
[corpse thuds]
- Alejandro, the money,
here is your promise,
by that time my wife
will save enough money
to pay for another two
years, on my grave above.
- Why do you not want
to spend the rest
of your unworldly life down
here with my friends, Juan Diaz?
- I do not like this place.
- All right, two
years, I promise.
Are you afraid,
afraid of my friends?
- Only of you, only of you.
[dark dramatic music]
[Juan chokes and groans]
- Juan, Juan Diaz?
Juan Diaz?
Is everything all right?
[dark dramatic music]
- Maria.
- I'm here.
- Did the doctor laugh?
- Oh no, no, he
has come and gone.
- Gone, already.
So everything goes quickly now.
- [Maria] Away, away now.
- Maria, so much to say.
- The important things I
have heard from you always.
- What has our marriage
been but hunger,
and sickness, and
now nothing, nothing!
I was not a good
farmer, my crops failed.
- They growed.
- I was a bad mechanic and I
couldn't work in a factory.
- You had not the strength.
- I could have made the
sweetest carriage on candies,
the sweetest cars, the
sweetest of all this,
and then I let a whole
lot of sugar skulls fall.
In what did I succeed?
- You have lit
candles in the world,
this, and this, and
this, do they not shine?
This house has no mirrors
yet it has mirrors.
Do you not see yourself here?
- Maria, I paid two years
of rent on my grave,
two years, don't let the
grave digger cheat you.
Remember.
- I shall remember.
- Oh, on the name of the saints,
departing in death
I might be with you.
Only in death I might
provide, bring food,
if from beyond the grave...
Just this one hand
might work for you.
But these are only words.
- Good words, Juan.
- Now I, I shall
take three breaths,
Maria, Jorge, Sabina, Ramona.
Three breaths.
One.
[deep breaths]
Two.
[deep breaths]
Three.
[deep breaths]
[dark dramatic music]
[children exhale]
- Juan Diaz.
[sinister music]
Juan Diaz, you hear me?
You see this?
You have been dead one year,
Juan, one year and five days.
Was is it a good year?
Huh?
Bad.
You do not know bad yet.
I will teach you.
This is your contract
with me, it's done.
Now we shall see each
other face-to-face.
[pickaxe thuds]
No, first I go.
You wait for for me, Juan.
You say you will, excellent.
[door knocks]
Maria Diaz, wife of Juan Diaz.
- Yes, this is the
wife of Juan Diaz.
You know me, speak.
- The year is up.
- The year?
- The year, the year
he bought the grave.
- What grave?
- What grave, what
other grave is there
in the whole world besides
the grave of Juan Diaz,
and his soul continues to
rest there, all being well,
and the new rent money in hand.
- Juan said on his
death bed, two.
He paid you for two years
rent upon his grave.
- One year, unless
of course you have
a signed paper
proving otherwise.
- Paper, what paper?
No paper, there was no time.
He was home before such
a paper could be signed.
- One year, senora.
And I have already give
you five days grace.
Do you have the money now?
- No, no I don't.
- Well.
- Hey Maria, my sister.
Jorge, little one,
come in, come in.
- Ricardo.
- Sit, come on,
come on, sit down.
What is that matter, huh?
Sit down.
What is the matter,
what is wrong?
You look like a--
- Ricardo, you must help me.
Tonight he will take
Juan out of the earth.
- Has the year passed
so swiftly then?
The rent's indeed
come due on his grave?
Maria, open it, nothing, and
nothing, and still nothing.
So, I cannot give you money.
What else can a brother do?
- But you are more
than a brother.
You are the chief of the police.
- Maria, the law stops
at the edge of the grave.
- If you will give me a
few weeks, a few days even,
time Ricardo, time
to find money, time.
- Yes, yes, look, sit down.
I will walk to the
mouth of the catacomb.
I will spit in it, but ah Maria,
don't ever expect the
spit ever to hit bottom.
You will hear no echo.
The catacomb is very deep.
Who I am to lose
myself under the earth?
And what authority
do I have to question
the dead or the
keeper of the dead?
Oh well.
Let me clothe my
nakedness, thus.
[Alejandro hums gleefully]
- [Alejandro] Well
is that Ricardo,
the chief of all our police?
And Maria Diaz, and her son?
Well it is not often that
I have such an audience.
- Stop digging.
- [Alejandro] There's
a funeral tomorrow
and the grave must be
open and empty already.
- No one has died.
- Someone always died.
The graveyard is full,
there is not much room.
All tenants must be evicted.
I am a kind landlord, but--
- Be still more kind.
- Chief of police, there
are two countries, eh,
your country and my country,
the land of the living
and this land here of the dead.
Of the two, the
land beyond the gate
is filled with
quarrels and orders.
It is not for me.
I prefer my own population of
the quiet and the silent ones,
the uncomplaining and
the unquarrelsome ones,
who order no orders and
criticize no criticisms.
Just as you do not like
me to conduct funerals
in your municipal office, I do
not welcome judges and juries
and the reckoning of
the law in this place,
where after all, who can hear?
- These hear, God help
them, now you hear me,
in sight of this
woman and this boy
how can you desecrate
the man's final bed?
- Oh, no, no, he was but a
traveler in death's kingdom
who paused to rest a while
here in this little room,
but there are many travelers
beating upon the door.
They too in need of such rooms.
Their fists clench with money.
Am I to turn away the weary
travelers because this one
forgetfully writes his
contract in the dust.
- You old man.
- Why do you call me old?
Do you hope that I
will die before you?
No, I will outlive you, chief
of police, and what then?
- Then?
- Then, on that day,
some day, or soon
when they bring your
body here to me.
What, when I have to bury you?
What, when you fall in my
hand, my law, on my land?
- You dog, you threaten me?
- No, no, I only said that
the graveyard is small
and the catacombs deep,
and the years are long.
After you die, chief of police
you may stay here with
me for a long while.
- What would you do?
Hide me in a bad
part of the catacomb?
Sit me a mummy at
a table and drink
with me, hang me by hair,
throw my bones to the dogs?
Dip ink for writing
out of my skull?
- I do not say
that, you say that,
and while you say, I dig.
[Alejandro hums cheerfully]
Good night, Ricardo.
Good night, Maria.
Good night, boy.
- No not good night,
the night is bad.
[shovel scrapes]
[coffin creaks]
[dark dramatic music]
- Hey, where you going, Jorge?
Are you looking for your father?
We know where he is.
- We all know, tell him, Pepe.
- [Pepe] No you tell.
- Liars, you lie.
- Go see for yourself.
- We dare, go on,
we dare you go on.
We dare you, we dare you.
Careful, go on,
Juan Diaz is there.
Go on, go on, we're sure
you'll see your father.
He's here, go on.
[dark dramatic music]
- Father?
Father?
This is Jorge, your son,
the son of Juan Diaz.
Father, I...
Father.
[dark dramatic music]
I brought you this.
[suspenseful music]
I will not let them do
this to you, father.
I will do something, I
will be back, I promise.
Oh, I promise.
[dark dramatic music]
- Due to circumstances
beyond our control,
we must interrupt to bring you
the following station break.
We shall continue
in a few moments.
Please bear with us.
[dark dramatic music]
[gate creaks]
[gate creaks]
- Who's there?
Who's there?
Who dares to enter my...
Who dares?
[gate creaks and shuts]
[suspenseful music]
- Mother, this way, quickly.
[dark dramatic music]
- Are you there?
Are you there, of
course you are there.
You have always been there.
You will be there forever.
[sinister laugh]
Oh, this is the
best part of my day.
I like to speak and
have no one shout back.
Oh the silence, the
silence, and the silence,
I touch it thus so,
and thus, and thus.
Roberto, good evening.
[drunkenly mumbling]
Pablo, greetings,
greetings my friend.
Do my dead one's breathe?
[suspenseful music]
Now, would you like to speak?
What would you like to tell me?
If you could speak,
what would you tell me?
Would you tell me
how much you love me?
Yes, love me, Alejandro,
the keeper of dry souls.
Because if you don't love
me, well, you are no burden,
death has rendered you
down to mere wheat chaff,
just a dry, dead corpse.
I could lift anyone of
you with my fingers, thus.
Anyone of you
[drunken mumbling].
I could toss like
grain into the wind.
You would blow away like dust.
Do you protest, Juan Diaz?
Do you call out against me?
Do you from your
cold eyes hate me?
Well I challenge you,
Juan Diaz, I dare you.
Seize the gravedigger,
throttle and choke him.
Do him to death!
[sinister laugh]
[dark dramatic music]
[match lights]
[dark dramatic music]
[dark dramatic music]
Good evening Alejandro,
it's time for bed,
too much drink, slowly now.
Don't run, but with care.
This foot and that,
this foot and then that,
this foot and that,
this foot and then that,
this foot and then that,
this foot then this foot.
This foot.
- We cannot escape, he
will be waiting up there.
- [Jorge] Watch.
[dark dramatic music]
[bottle crashes]
[dark dramatic music]
[lock clinks]
[Alejandro whines]
- Help me!
Robert, Sandy, Pina!
Hurry, hurry.
[door knocks]
Hurry!
[door knocks rapidly]
- You--
- Maria, forgive the hour.
- Forgive nothing, let us in.
- Will you let us in?
- Yes.
- The law of the living first,
then the law of the dead.
- Shh, the children sleep.
- I cannot sleep, you have
stolen from me, arrest her.
There.
- Maria?
- We have no mummy here.
- We did not say a
mummy was missing.
We said nothing.
How could you know
that we would say
a body was gone unless
you stole it yourself?
You see.
- What else could one steal
from the land of the dead?
- True, she makes a fine point.
Still my dear sister,
I feel I must ask,
what is that which leans
against the far wall.
- That?
- Yes, that, that!
- Oh, to celebrate the festival
of the day of our
dear dead ones.
I have taken paper,
and flour, and clay,
and made of it a life-size toy,
which looks like the
mummies from the catacomb.
- Have you indeed
done this, Maria?
- No, no, I tell you.
- With your permission, Maria.
- You'll need a
light to see better.
Ah, so?
- [Ricardo] So?
- With this papier-mache
mummy, this toy, I plan-
- Plan, what plan?
- It is a plan by
whereby with this toy,
we provide money to eat with.
Would you deny my children this?
- I would deny your
children nothing
that is rightfully theirs.
- A toy, a death toy, surely
the largest death
toy I've ever seen.
I stand in awe of
your talent, Maria.
- Her talent for
thievery, this is no toy!
- Do you swear, Maria,
that this is papier-mache?
- By the virgin, I swear.
- By the virgin?
- Well, then what
more need be said?
- Mine, it's mine, my property.
- The toy if it
is a toy and made
by me must surely belong to me.
And even, even if
it is not a toy,
and it's indeed Juan
Diaz who has come home,
why then does not Juan
Diaz belong first to God?
- How can one argue that?
- I argue.
- An act of God, in God's
eye, and at God's altar,
and in God's church, on one
of God's holiest afternoons,
did not Juan Diaz say that
we by mine through his days?
- Ah, ah, there you are,
throughout his days!
Ha ha, his days are
over, now he is mine!
- So, let me list,
God's property first,
then Maria Diaz's property,
that is if this toy
is not a toy, and is Juan Diaz.
But anyway, landlord of the
dead, you evicted your tenant.
You so much as said
you did not want him,
but if you love him so
dearly and wish his return,
will you pay the rent now that
you want to tenant him again.
- I pay?
The law.
- Ah yes.
- [Alejandro] The law.
- The law, grave keeper,
I've seen many long months
and many fine points of law,
many lawyers and judges,
many issues to argue
now, this way and that,
which include real
estate, toy manufacturers,
Maria, God, Juan
Diaz wherever he is,
hungry children, the conscience
of the keeper of graves,
and so much complication that
his business will suffer.
Are you prepared for long
years of litigation in court?
- I am prepared!
- My good man, the other
night you gave me some
small advice which
now I return to you.
I do not direct the
traffic of the dead.
Now, you must not control
the traffic of the living.
Your jurisdiction ends
at the tomb yard gate.
So, I pronounce this officially,
fake, a toy, not a mummy.
Come along cold one, back to
your proper country, yeah?
Maria, good night.
Children of Maria,
good night, sleep.
- You go, I go,
but what about him?
- Well yeah, Juan
Diaz goes nowhere.
He will be here if still
you wish to sue in court.
Do you see him running,
dancing, escaping?
You do not.
Maria, Maria, come
along cold one.
[dramatic music]
[car door shuts]
[coins clank]
[dramatic music]
[door closes]
[slow dramatic music]
- Juan, Juan Diaz, do you see?
Do you know?
Do you truly understand?
We are in the town, on
the way to the graveyard.
It's said to find may
tourists coming this way.
They, you said, if only in
death you might be with us.
You said, if only in death
you might bring food.
If but one of your
hands might work for us.
So, Juan, Juan, do you forgive
me for bringing me here?
Do you forgive me?
Do you forgive me?
[stirring emotional music]
Previews of our next attraction
will be shown in a few moments.
First however, we
come to the cl*max
of this evening's entertainment.
To be fully appreciated
this commercial
must be seen from the beginning.
Therefore, no one will be
seated after it starts.
[lively mystery theme music]
[uptempo theme music]
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