index and thumb

In high school, the man who conducted my Psych class stressed the importance of asking “how?”, not “why?”.  Not “why did you strangle someone?”,  but rather “how you became the strangler?”.  Notice I said conducted, not taught.  Riding herd, more like.  Freud, emasculated, by professorial apathy. Still, that one item survived across the years, a useful filter to keep the mind agile.

Dominique Blanchar, George Tyne, Gary Merrill  in Decision Before Dawn, 1951, directed by Anatole Litvak

Today’s epiphany came courtesy of catching an old flick on youtube, Decision Before Dawn.  Brutal times, brilliant execution.  War was still fresh in ’51, I’m sure it resonated — no, wrong word… More like ripped out the viewer’s heart.  How? I was bored, and ran a search beginning with the word “dawn”, and up it came, grabbing my throat by the eyeballs.

That, in turn, led to The Man…