Murder attempts on young Charlie
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Talking_To_The_Bobs — 17 years ago(July 13, 2008 09:15 AM)
How can there be a shadow of a doubt about it?
I thought it was obvious, but then they showed a stick that was jamming the garage door to keep it closed (with young Charlie inside). I didn't see how Uncle Charlie could have put that stick there. They showed him inside the house pretty much throughout that scene. He rigged the car and then went inside the house. How did the stick get placed against the closed door with her inside? Maybe he put the stick close by when he rigged the car, but she had to open the door to go inside the garage. Wouldn't the stick then be cleared away from the closed door?
I didn't get that. The only explanation I can think of is that he snuck outside to close the door and jam the stick against the closed door with her inside the garage. -
josh_ff8 — 17 years ago(July 14, 2008 09:20 AM)
It's pretty obvious that Uncle Charlie put the stick under the door. There's a shot of him deliberately (but discreetly) kicking it out of the way to open the door, indicating that he knew it was there all along. As for him being inside the house, we see him descending the staircase after Young Charlie was locked in the garage, implying that he snuck out the back way and quickly came back.
Do film audiences today really need every single little detail spelled out for them? -
Talking_To_The_Bobs — 17 years ago(July 14, 2008 10:41 AM)
we see him descending the staircase after Young Charlie was locked in the garage, implying that he snuck out the back way and quickly came back.
I didn't see that scene. If that did happen, then it does make it clear that Uncle Charlie did it.
It was late when I was watching it, though. Perhaps I was half-asleep and missed that part.
And, no, I DON'T have to have every single thing spelled out. However, from the scenes I SAW, Uncle Charlie couldn't have locked young Charlie in the garage. -
jj-patton — 18 years ago(November 13, 2007 12:16 PM)
Within the context of the movie, yes, we're supposed to think they're both murder attempts.
The car exhaust/locked garage door was a legit attempt and might have worked - but does anyone really think a fall down the back stairs would have killed young Charlie? Injure, maybe, but kill?
Lots of movies seem to equate falling down a flight of stairs with a reliable murder method, seems silly. -
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beaslybee — 16 years ago(July 23, 2009 03:36 PM)
Well, maybe she wouldn't have died from falling down a regular flight of stairs. But throughout the movie, Emma Newton keeps mentioning how steep and dangerous the stairs are. Also, since they are outside, there's always the chance that she would land on a rock or maybe even the hard pavement. Either way, I think that if she were to land head-first on a steep set of wooden stairs, a snap of the neck might be enough to kill her.
And as much as I adore Uncle Charlie (ignoring the fact that he's a murderer and all), he's not exactly subtle. Probably if she hadn't died from her fall, he would have come towards her weilding an ax or something. -
waj-stock — 12 years ago(December 10, 2013 03:06 AM)
There is one point that has always puzzled me, that nobody else appears to have picked up. When Young Charlie is trapped in the garage with the car engine running, how come it is running without the key in the ignition?
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Petronius Arbiter II — 11 years ago(April 15, 2014 09:15 AM)
Car ignitions back in the old days didn't always disallow removing the key from a running car. My memory's a bit foggy on that, but I do seem to recall being in some older model cars where that was possible.
Changing that to today's scheme makes carbon monoxide poisoning less common, but also makes car theft
more
common. There's almost always a trade-off of some kind when technology changes.
"I don't deduce, I observe." -
bhobnine — 11 years ago(November 30, 2014 04:38 PM)
Cars were like this for quite a while.
Where you had the option of taking the key with you and still start it.
I had a 50 Chevy where you could unlock the ignition with the key,
remove the key, then start it with a push button.
Someone had also painted it in green house paint.
Neither being great ideas
Pffft, my suspension of disbelief has higher standards than that.
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amyghost — 11 years ago(April 25, 2014 08:21 AM)
Actually, I think the stair sequence is meant to be ambiguous; that is, it isn't certain whether Charles has made an attempt on his niece's life or if she's had a genuine accident (it's indicated earlier that the steps are in bad repair) which he witnesses, and thus gets the idea of doing away with her in a manner that would look purely accidental.
It's not surprising why he wouldn't rush to help herafter all, at this point they're open enemies, and he'd have to know that if he approached her, Charlie might say something in front of the others that could give the game away. She tells him "Go away" when he's carried her out of the carbon-monoxide filled garage, but he knows that the other family members might not have heard her, and even if they did her reaction could be chalked up to her being disoriented. On the stairs, she's obviously lucid, unharmed, and her averse reaction to him in that setting might set off alarm bells even in the dimmest of the others.
Re. the jammed garage door: Ever wonder if it might have been
Herb
who put the stick there?
Charles shuts the door, knowing it sticks badly, and with Charlie fuddled from the fumes she'd be too weak to get it open even without another impediment. And I've always taken his reaction shot, when he looks down and kicks it aside to be one of mild surprise at seeing it therethat might be a misread on my part, but it always looked that way.
Herb is a mousy little guy who wants to be a hero, thoughhe'd certainly never try to harm her (in fact the following sequence after her rescue seems to hint old Herbie has a little bit of a thing for her himself): but he might, hearing someone trapped inside the garage, want to make sure his big moment of stepping in and 'saving' her by announcing to the others that he's heard someone inside doesn't get blown by her getting out on her own before he has the chance. So he makes sure the door will stay closed until he has his big moment.
Charles definitely is trying to kill her in that scene, but he might have gotten an inadvertent assist from Herb, who's trying to be the one who saves the day. Herb would be too puny to be able to carry her out himself, thoughhe'd have to be content with just making his announcement and taking credit for alerting everyone to her being in there in the first place.
I think Hitch was hinting at everyone's moral ambiguities in this film. So it wouldn't be utterly surprising to have one of the secondary characters possibly doing something very much like this at all! -
franzkabuki — 13 years ago(June 23, 2012 09:24 PM)
The stair- or step incident probably has indeed the distinction of being the most ill-conceived device of its kind put to use by Hitchcock - apparently, we were supposed to be holding our breath in smothering suspense to find out whether this chick is going to break her leg or just get away with a bruise. Truly sinister stuff.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan -