Title: “Gershwin’s Trunk”
Series: Amazing Stories
Season: 2
Year: 1987
Writer(s): Paul Bartel and John Meyer
Storyline: A man answers a knock at his door in the early hours, to be confronted by a detective who says he saw him dump a body off the Brooklyn Bridge only a short time ago. We’ve seen the composer trying to mop up blood off his carpet before the detective arrived, so we know he’s right. Flashbacks show him splitting up with his partner, Larry, and being subject to writer’s block, unable to come up with any of the tunes he’s supposed to have written for a new musical. At the same time, his wife decides she’s had enough and leaves him. I don’t blame her: I hate the guy already and want to strangle him with the wire from his own piano!
His maid suggests a psychic she knows, and though Jojo resists it as nonsense, he’s finally desperate enough to take the chance and go see her in the hope she can help him regain his mojo. Seemingly against her will, she gets possessed by the spirit of George Gershwin (well duh; the name is in the title huh?) and he begins writing stuff which Jojo then presents to his director, passing it off as his own work. He loves it, but Alan, the stage pianist, who knows Jojo and is aware he is the less talented of the partnership, thinks it’s not his style and that he must have stolen it from someone else. Meanwhile the possession is taking its toll on Sister Teresa; she doesn’t look well, but Jojo continues on, uncaring, only interested in his songs and not in the least bothered about the health of the one who is making him a success.
When Alan says he knows what he’s up to and he’s going to blow the whistle on him, Jojo takes a heavy candlestick and kills him. Now, obviously, we’re moving back to the present, or just hours before it, as the composer carries Alan’s body to the bridge and dumps it over, unaware he’s being watched. He manages to bribe the cop, who suddenly has a lapse of memory. However he does tell Jojo that should his show not be successful and bring in the money he expects - of which the detective is in for fifty percent - his memory is liable to suddenly come back. Jojo is not bothered though; he knows his show is going to be the biggest and most long-running hit in town for years to come.
Meanwhile, he discovers that Jerry is getting married to his ex, which does not go down well. Even less so when he learns they have been carrying on for over a year behind his back. In revenge, he ensures his show is held back one night, to allow Jerry's to open; he tells the cop that his success will taste all the sweeter after Jerry’s failure. Unfortunately for him, he’s not the only one of the ex-partnership who’s been visiting Sister Teresa. Oh yeah: Jerry has the very same songs in his musical, and since he opened first, there’s no way Jojo can now open his show, or it will look like he’s ripping him off. Speaking of off, so is the deal between him and the cop, and he’s headed to jail.
Comments: I’m not overfond of musicals, so this doesn’t sit too well with me, but it’s a half-decent story. I would say though that Gershwin’s music is very specific and recognisable, so how this guy thought he would pass the great master’s compositions off as his own without raising some suspicions is odd. He’s a thoroughly unlikeable little runt, a cut-throat only out for himself and his career, and speaking of being a runt, how did he manage to hoist a heavier body than him up to the railing of the bridge and over? It should have been next to impossible. Another question: why is the cop there at the bridge? That’s never explained. Not that bad overall though I guess.
Rating: B
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