Original subtitles

(upbeat music)

- [Buz] Speedways, turnpikes,

enter at A exit at Z, what a kick.

Whatever happened to B through Y?

And what's just off the turnpike over the hill?

Where are all the timeless towns and the lost roads?

- [Tod] What have you got against progress?

What's the matter with shopping centers

and housing projects and electronic factories?

- [Buz] Just a thought, forget it?

- [Tod] That thought you had,

whose says we have to stay glued to the turnpike?

Who says we have to be in Philadelphia by X hour?

What happens if we twist the wheel at the next turn off?

To the right Hester and the unknown.

Straight ahead Philly.

- [Buz] I'm with you.

- [Tod] Right.

- [Buz] Hester, ready or not here we come.

- Suppose we could have driven right

through Hester and not known it?

- Hester baby, where'd you get to?

- We got enough for three or four miles

if we catch all the prevailing trade winds.

You'd better check our map and see

where little old Hester went to.

- Relax, it should be just around the next bend.

(upbeat music)

So it was a long bend.

- What do we do if there's no gas pump in Hester?

- Settle down and get a job.

- Doing what?

- Well we can sell lightning rods

and fill cracker barrels, you know all the latest jazz.

- Say is there a gas pump in town?

(calm music)

(dramatic music)

- He's a Colby like I suspensioned.

But he's a new one, one I ain't never seen before.

Look at that jaw, it's a snapping turtle.

That's the Colby jaw, nobody can tell me other.

Them eyes, Panthers just ready to flame out.

And the set of shoulders, the way he carries hisself,

as if the ground ain't something to plant,

just something to stomp on.

Yes sir that's sure a Colby.

- I can't see how.

After Jeff is Tom, ain't that right?

- Yeah.

- After Tom there's Hank, and there's Jim, and Mark.

- Yeah but this one, this one would

fit right in between Mark and Danny, the youngest.

- Well how come we never saw him before?

- You're forgetting Dorothea.

(dramatic music)

- Would you clear back please.

We don't want to lose momentum.

Who sells the gas?

- Did I drop an arm or something?

- It's an old local legend about

the great white father that comes from the East

and teaches them how to raise truffles.

And you're the great white father.

- Why me, why not you?

- I don't know ask them, it's their legend.

- We prefer to ride inside.

I mean it's not that we don't enjoy pushing it,

it's just that well you'd be amazed

at what a little of that stuff can do.

Now if we can trouble one of you

to sell us 10 gallons of gas we'd be

much obliged, very much obliged okay?

- It's the Colby voice.

- They must think I'm somebody else.

- We know what you are and who.

It's just your first name we don't know that's all.

- [Buz] Buz.

- Where you been to all these years?

- I mean is this happening, like for real?

- You think you know this fella?

- Like a shelled seed corn.

- Buz you ever been here before?

- Oh yeah I used to come here all the time.

Twice a week for 200 years to race chariots.

Didn't I ever tell you?

- [Tod] No.

- Nero used to sit right up there eating crackers.

That's where he developed that thumbs down habit

you know by fishing around in the cookie jar.

And now let's see I guess it was

right around there a chic named Cleopatra

used to run a barge service with

some out of town cat called Tony.

They went bankrupt one summer, when the river dried up.

Awe come on you know this happens all the time

all over the country, all over the world I'll bet you.

Some people look like other people.

Remember the time in El Paso there was

that guy that you thought was your twin brother?

He even had a voice that sounded like yours.

Okay so they think I'm, who did you say I was?

- You're a Colby, there ain't no use denying it.

Though I can't say I fault you for trying.

- Well let's say I am a Colby, why would I deny it?

- Don't try to trick me son.

Maybe you talk smoother than the others

'cause you're ma took you away but

leopard can't change his spots, no sir, that's a fact.

But you're just as mean no account,

and as dangerous as the rest of your brothers.

- Alright let's say I am a Colby.

Do you know what a Colby does when he asks for gas

and nobody hustles to use the pump?

- How much you say you want?

- Fill the tank up.

- Can you pay?

- Maybe, and if I can't?

Beat it.

- You came back home without Dorothea, how come?

- Well you know Dorothea she's hung up

on skin diving, she's cooked out for hammerheads.

She's in the shark patrol, Sydney.

Sydney, Aurstralia.

She likes to wrestle those two ton jobs

with her bare hands, she's strictly a pearly tooth kid.

- Well you're crazy too.

Though I'd expect a Colby to talk that way about his mother.

No sense at all, least of all respect though,

way it was I can't say I fault you.

- I'd say you fault me.

Wouldn't you say he faults me?

- Buz I don't think you heard him.

He said he's not surprised to hear a Colby

talk that way about his mother.

Dorothea is a mother.

- Welcome to the club.

There you are friend, don't say a Colby doesn't pay his way.

Keep the rest of it.

- Wait a minute.

You don't know who you're mother and father were.

You don't who left you on that doorstep in New York.

I mean why it couldn't it be

Dorothea Colby of Hester, Maryland?

- I guess what it is with you is the country air huh?

When it happens, when I know, if I know

if it ever happens it won't be like this.

Not at some nowhere bend in the road,

not in the company of ghosts like these, faces like fists.

No, it'll be banners waving

and trumpets hitting high C when I know.

Come on look, out of a whole country you know

there's thousands of towns, millions of families.

We just luck into the one town, the one family?

Ah nah, come on, let's get out of here.

- Where's the Colby place?

- It's out where the owls weep just to fly over.

- Maybe I aught to ask a weeping owl then huh?

- Ask him, he's a Colby.

He just has to stick his nose up

in the wind and he can smell his kin.

- That's the way you want to leave it huh?

We just drive around looking for the Colby place

until we find it and then we tell them

how you treated one of the Colby boys.

- Five miles straight ahead and up Hunter's Hill road.

You'll know alright when you're there.

Yes sir you'll know sure as sin you're there.

- Hey.

(dramatic music)

- Look do me a favor, when we get

to Hunter's Hill, don't turn in.

I don't want to go to the Colby place.

- Thing like this could be important.

Aren't you even curious?

- Don't you understand, I've learned to accept everything.

Why should I go looking for my mother's bed?

Look Tod old buddy, I've got it made.

I don't even know my date of birth.

On or around September the 23rd,

25 years ago, give or take a week.

So 30 birthdays has September.

Now how many guys can make that statement?

- Even trees have rings that tell their age.

Are you better than a tree?

- That depends on the kind of tree you're talking about.

- Well I'm going into the Colby's.

You can sit in the car if you want to

and count the days in September.

But I'm gonna find out who this

Dorothea was and where she went.

- Anybody ever tell you you're a nosy body?

- Well I'd rather have a nose 10 feet long

than blinders on my eyes.

Look Buz some kind of destiny

made us turn off that turnpike.

- I made you turn off the turnpike.

- Too late.

(dramatic music)

Mr. Colby?

This may not make any sense to you but

we're looking for Dorothea Colby.

- Jess!

- Yeah pa?

- Tom!

Hank!

(dramatic music)

Mark!

Mark what are you doing, are you in that barn again?

Get on down here.

- Just pitching a little hay Grandpa.

Be right back.

- I've got to go home.

- Drive you in the pickup, but later.

(dramatic music)

- It's like seeing you in the mirror.

- Now, you just ask that question again.

- Well it's about a lady, Dorothea Colby.

We figured she might be a relative of yours or something.

- Jess, you uncork him.

- Wait a minute no wait a minute he was talking for me.

So I'll talk for myself.

Now where did she go and when, what year and what month?

- Jess.

(dramatic music)

- Now can we have an answer?

- Yeah, Tom.

- I'll take this one.

- No you just wait there I'll take.

(dramatic music)

Hank next?

(dramatic music)

You're up Mark.

- You're Dorothea's kid alright.

Ain't nobody could be so mean or fight so hard.

- Dorothea's kid, you're her father?

- I'm your grandpa son.

Though I never thought I'd be saying

those words, not as long as I lived.

She send you home?

- I don't even know what she looks like.

- Well that sounds more like her.

What she do, just up and leave you?

- Look aren't there any pictures

of Dorothea's child, or a birth certificate?

- No, Dorothea she went away before he was born.

She never come back, word is that she

went down to Baltimore, run away with that Wallace fella.

- When?

- Ma?

- February it was, 25 year ago last February.

Just when the beans was put up.

- When would she have had the baby?

- You aught to know your own birthday son.

- When?

- September, some time in September.

I never heard just when, she never wrote.

- [Colby] What name do you go by boy?

- Buz, don't you have a picture of her?

(somber music)

- You come along with me boy.

(somber music)

Here you are boy, here you are.

- I don't know what to believe.

I mean this whole thing this room, people, all of it.

It's crazy.

I'd like to have this, I'd like to take it with me.

- Take it where?

- Baltimore, where she went, where I'm going.

- Yeah.

(dramatic music)

- She came to Baltimore a quarter

of a century ago, they think.

What door do we knock on first?

Where do we start?

- With him.

(calm music)

Where's missing persons?

- Upstairs, last office on your right.

- Thank you.

(calm music)

- I don't know Tod all of a sudden I fell pretty silly.

I mean there's enough trouble today, why did back 25 years?

- Is this the voice of the tiger

that flattened three Colby's?

- Yeah but back there I was wearing a suit of armor,

had a lance in one hand and a sword in the other,

and Merlin whispering in my ear.

Sir Murdock go dig the Holy Grail but,

I don't know here, a missing persons bureau.

Why don't we just let it stay forgotten?

- Can you forget it?

- Not buying today?

- No my friend decided to forget it.

- Your girl left you?

Had a women in last week complaining about

the trucks on her street, ruined three of her cakes.

She'll come back, not the woman, your girl.

Who is she?

- She is Dorothea Colby, she came to Baltimore

from Hester, Maryland February 1937.

She had a baby that September, how do I find her?

- Relative?

- I don't have any.

- Well if you can find her you might, is that it?

- Is it hopeless?

- Found an old fella last week

been separated from his family for 50 years.

Took us two days.

Riley, check city directory in the phone book.

Dorothea Colby.

That her married name?

- I don't know her married name.

- Chances are she's not listed, but could be.

Case like this where it's not an urgent

I don't have enough man power to go full time.

But I'll have the boys add her name to our root list.

Sooner or later she'll pop up in the net.

- When you go full time where do you start?

I mean where do you look?

- Well, you find some address where she lived

and you ask around, maybe there's a neighbor

from her time still lives there, so you ask.

Did she have a car?

That'll lead you to the commissioner

of motor vehicles at Gilfard and 22nd.

Where'd she work?

Check the department of employment

and the local union offices.

Check her charge accounts, go downtown to--

- Wait a minute.

- At the downtown department stores

or the merchants credit bureau.

Was she sickly, what kind of medicine did she take?

That could lead you to a drug store,

or to a doctor who knows where she is.

Check the hospitals especially

the heart and diabetes clinics.

She's over 45 isn't she?

Where was her baby delivered?

That'll be in vital statistics, City Hall.

She could have a mailing box, or there might be

a record of some registered mail she's received.

Then there's the cemeteries.

Course vital statistics, City Hall

can give you that a lot faster.

I could go on for half an hour but

that aught to give you the idea.

Nothing?

- Not in that name Lieutenant.

- They all start out like this, nowhere.

But they grow and they come into focus, you'll see.

- Lieutenant, the Inspector's on the line.

- Right there.

For openers run over to the Enoch Pratt Library

on Cathedral, they have city directories

as far back as 1855, maybe she's in the '37 or '38 books.

And call me later,

I'll do some checking around in my spare time.

- How come?

- How come what?

- How come the red carpet, wall to wall?

- I'm just a sentimental slob.

Maybe that's why they got me here.

(calm music)

- Here.

(calm music)

- [Buz] Colby, Dorothea, 1113 Ensor.

(dramatic music)

(calm music)

First you find an address and then you ask a neighbor.

Isn't that what the lieutenant said?

What neighbor?

Now what do you do when the whole neighborhood's gone?

- Well there was the baby.

Let's try City Hall, vital statistics.

(calm music)

- Buz.

Hospital records verified the City Hall listing.

She had the baby here September 18, 1937.

- Like it says downtown, a boy?

- A boy.

If you show him the picture he may be able

to tell you more, he was working here that year

in maternity, an intern in the charity ward.

Doctor this is Buz Murdock.

- How do you do?

- Glad to know you.

- Sit down.

- Thank you.

- Well don't know what good this will go you but,

whatever it's worth.

Patient Dorothea Colby, admitted September 17

3:30 in the afternoon, male infant born

September 18 at 4:10 in the morning,

eight pounds two ounces, length 21 inches.

- Tod said you were the intern.

Do you remember her, or the baby?

- Sure, I delivered the baby.

Oh she didn't have her a doctor as I say,

it was a charity case.

I was on duty that morning when her time came.

By the time the staff obstetrician had arrived

the child was delivered.

- Do you remember anything about the baby?

The color of the eyes, hair?

- Yes they were dark like yours, black like yours.

- Thank you Doctor, let's go huh Buz?

- You mean you just delivered a baby

and no one ever knows what happens after that?

She just walks out with a kid

and that's that, it's all done?

- She never came back to our pediatric clinic.

She never asked for any help.

- Here's a name for you, Hope Lansing.

Runs on a place on the block, East Palmore.

She used to work with Dorothea

for a few weeks after the kid was born.

Go talk to her, who knows?

- How'd you get this?

- Had a few minutes today so I ran down

the Ensor address where Dorothea lived in '37.

- So did we, nothing left.

- Yeah but I checked back into the records for the

trust deed holders on the buildings they torn down.

The original landlord rememered Dorothea

and a friend she had working with her at that time.

(sultry jazz music)

- [Tod] A long time ago you knew

a girl named Dorothea Colby, remember?

- How about popping a cork honey?

We got the best imported local champaign on the block.

- Why don't we just give you the money instead huh?

- I can't use the income, in my bracket it would kill me.

Charlie, champaign like for the three of us.

Right over here.

Sure I remember Dorothea, I used to room with her.

She worked here before she had the kid

and for a couple of weeks afterwards.

She came on second to closing, I was the headliner then.

But boy I had to really go some to top her.

Sweet innocent face right off the farm but wow.

- Where do we find her or the boy?

- I haven't got the faintest,

she just disappeared into thin air.

Hated the kid, she probably dumped

him on somebody's front porch.

- You drink it, I'd probably choke.

- Charlie back in the ice box.

- Sorry I got you into this buddy.

(sultry jazz music)

(calm music)

- Well keep checking on it, I'll see you when I get back.

Right.

Thanks Bill.

Remember I said these things always fall into focus?

Exactly what's happened, come on.

Now this is one missing person that really got to me.

Talk about blind alleys?

Listen I turned this town upside down since yesterday.

It's like Dorothea Colby took a balloon

to the moon in September, 1937.

Only one explanation, had to be a name switch.

That's why I asked for that photograph.

Ed Hesting on the paper here is one of

the top artists in town, every now and then

we borrow him to make an eye witness sketch

when we got a dragnet out for a killer.

So I said to him Eddie, I want you to age this woman

for me like you think nature herself

might have done it these past 25 years

and take a picture of that and we'll see where we are.

Eddie we come in?

- Sure.

I had to guess at the hair style.

That depends on what she's doing now

and a lot of other things but,

that's how I see her lieutenant.

- You know who she looks like?

Take a good look.

- Hey is that, what's her name?

Well how about that.

- Now look Murdock this could be tricky.

I don't want to embarrass Ms. Thompson.

Now maybe she is the missing Dorothea Colby

or maybe I'm 1000% wrong.

Actually I want to keep this unofficial.

I'll clear it so you can be alone with her.

From that point on it's strictly between you and her, clear?

- Yeah.

(somber music)

- Surgery B.

- That's it.

- Thanks lieutenant.

- Good luck.

(suspenseful music)

- You're first intestinal resection?

You have remarkable concentration,

I could just feel it.

I haven't seen you before Doctor, you just arrive?

- [Buz] I'm not a doctor.

- Well you're not supposed to be here

only doctors are permitted.

- well in this case they made an exception.

You see I came here to see you.

I, I don't know where to start.

Would it be possible if I came down there

or you came up here or something?

I used to have this terrible dream

about an airplane that flew over the place I lived.

It always fell.

It, it used to come down like oh with

the sounds of screaming angels.

At least that's what I used to think when I was a kid.

It always crashed in the middle of my garden

where my mother was planting flowers.

I used to yell mama, mama look out it's headed for you.

She never heard me and I couldn't move.

I took roots like the roses she was growing.

After the crash the garden always burst into flame

and the roses burned down like fuses real fast,

right down to the ground and my mother, she burned down too

just like the roses, until everything around me was ashes.

Except me, me it didn't touch.

- Who are you?

- Ms. Colby, Ms. Thompson I, I just gotta know.

I gotta know.

I mean there's nothing anywhere about that kid

that was born September the 18th 25 years ago, my age.

- What would you say to a woman

who wanted you out of her life forever?

What would you say to a mother like that?

- I don't know.

At times I used to hate the thought of her.

You know the way kids used to

count on their fingers from one to 10?

I used to count all the ungiven kisses,

all the uncelebrated birthdays, one to you name it.

But how can you hate your own mother?

I don't care what she's done.

It's just that I don't know maybe if I could just

understand why I was left behind.

(calm music)

- I wish I could say you were my baby.

But all I can say is please forgive me.

Try to forgive me, all I can do is

try to make you understand what happened.

I had a baby, every time I held him or looked at him

all I could see was the face of his father.

And I wished him dead.

With all my heart I wished that man dead.

I didn't know then what I've learned since.

That when you bare a child you too can be reborn

with the miracle of his newness.

That the promise is his promise and your hope is his hope.

How could I have expected to know that

he could rise above me or the kind of father he'd had?

So I wished him dead, as I wished his father dead.

Oh I fed and clothed him, kept him warm and clean.

I did all the things that a mother is supposed to do,

except love him.

He died.

One night in his sleep he just died.

He was only six weeks old, that's all he was.

Not even half a winter.

I wrapped him up, I drove out to the country.

I took some branches I scraped a grave,

and I parted with him.

I came back to town, I walked into this hospital

and I asked if I could work here.

They said who are you and what do you know about nursing?

I took a name Joan Thompson.

I said I know nothing about nursing but I will learn.

I will comfort everyone who needs comforting,

and everyone I comfort will be a child

to be held and loved and healed.

- Goodbye Ms. Thompson.

- Please don't hate your mother.

She gave you life, that's more than I could give my son.

- But if only I could see her once,

know about if she needs anything, needs me, you know?

- For a moment there when you hoped I might be her,

I was her and now with my hands on your shoulders

they could be your mother's hands.

For us, for you and me, maybe that has to be enough.

(dramatic music)

(upbeat music)

- [Narrator] This has been a Screen Gems

film presentation from Columbia Pictures,

Herbert B. Leonard Executive Producer.