M                                                                                                                                                                                      More M

The M Train

12, 105, 210, 316. What do all of these numbers have in common? If you write them with a colon you are most likely to get 12:00, 1:05, 2:10, 3:16 a.m. or p.m. Now you've got one answer to the question: They all represent time on a clock. They also represent the first four times the minute hand and the hour hand line up like one hand on the the same half of the face.  That alignment occurs 22 times a day. 12:00 noon is a great Twilight Zone number in that it starts one episode with the words, "Twelve o'clock noon...lunch time..." and another episode where a code breaker who turns hands on a clock into dates on a calendar is lunch.

The Twilight Zone begins another episode with a clock.  The loud ticking of a hospital patient's clock a clock is the first thing you hear in "Twenty Two." You don't see the hands of a clock related to her vision until she's in the airport about to depart on flight 22. On the airport wall clock, you might not  think that the 8: 11 time had anything to do with the title. Whether or not it was done intentionally, the hour hand and the minute hand are in perfect alignment on opposite sides of the clock. That happens as often as they line up on the same side; twenty-two times a day. 

The Swiss Army logo is in the 12 position on it's 24-hour watch. The watch sets up the calendar code. The code turns 105 into an area on a map. Mark Fuhrman signed into the Bundy murder scene a t 2:10, one calendar day after the murders. Read as a date, 210  is the birthday of Mark Fuhrman's father Ralph. Read as a watch code, 316 is 3 28, the birthday of Mark Fuhrman's mother Billie. 316 is also an area code for Wichita, the city in her home state of Kansas. Wichita is where lawman Wyatt Earp's legend begins.

The fact that the brain is physically wired to recall things, disassemble them and reassemble them in novel configurations is the key that unlocks Mark Fuhrman’s cinematic "imagination." It’s why you can go from Fritz Lang's M to the Mothers poem photo in Fuhrman’s Murder in Brentwood by way of a clock, a calendar, some cowboy movie posters and a tin star...

Make that, The Tin Star, a short story written by John Cunningham and published with a faithful illustration of its cemetery visit turning point in the December 6, 1947 issue of Colliers Magazine. This story is the missing piece of his "sports stars" story in Murder in Brentwood, why he posed the question the way he did and why he named George Forman, Michael Jordan and Larry Bird in parentheses. 

The hero is a late 1880s Western town sheriff  named Doane. He's old. His hands are badly crippled by arthritis and his wife has recently passed away. It's Sunday afternoon and he has wrapped a bunch of daises in a newspaper to take to her grave as he's done every week since she died.

The Tin Star begins with a discussion in progress between the old sheriff and Toby, his young deputy who's fed up with the job that demands everything and pays next to nothing. Doane doesn't see the job that way. He sees the very fact that he isn't rewarded with money for upholding the law – for being true to the best he has in him – as a form of freedom. For Sheriff Doane, it's all about doing the right thing every time just because it is the right thing. He says:

"You've got to risk everything. And you're free inside. Like the larks. You know the larks? How they get up in the sky and sing when they want to? A pretty bird. A very pretty bird. That's the way I like to feel inside."

Doane and Toby are waiting for a killer named Jordan on the 4:10 train. Already in town to help him kill Doane are his younger brother, "young Jordan," and gunmen  named Pierce and Colby. The only men in the story with first names are Frank Colby and Mayor, Percy Mettrick. The mayor is pressing Doane to quit. The first and last name of the sheriff's dead wife are written on her tombstone: "Cecelia Doane, born 1837, died 1885, the loyal wife..."

Doane rides his horse past Mexican shacks on the outskirts of town to the cemetery mound  to place daises on his wife's grave. Young Jordan, having had way too much whiskey to drink, follows him and tries unsuccessfully to goad him into a fight.

"'You think I ain't sober enough to fight?' Jordan slipped his right gun out of its holster, turning away from Doane. Doane stiffened. 'Wait, mister,' Jordan said.

"He cocked the gun, 'see that bird?" He raised the gun into the air squinting along the barrel, The bright nickel of the finish gleamed in the sun. The lark wheeled and fluttered. Jordan's arm swung unsteadily in a small circle.

"He pulled the trigger and the gun blasted. The lark jumped in the air, flew away about twenty feet, and began circling again, catching insects.

"'Missed 'im," Jordan mumbled, lowering his arm and wiping the sweat off his forehead. 'Damn it, I can't see!' He raised his arm again. Again the heavy blast cracked Doane's ears. Down in the town, near the Mexican huts, he could see tiny figures run out into the street.

"The bird didn't jump this time but darted away out of sight over the hill."

Young Jordan's next dumb move is to whip Doane's horse so that it gallops down the hill to town. Toby, hearing the shots then seeing the horse without its rider, believes that Doane has been killed. The gunfight is on. Deputy Toby draws first blood. The first to die is young Jordan as his brother's train arrives in town right on time...

The gunfight is no ballet of heroic action against dreadful odds. It's a mess. It ends with Doane catching fatal bullets meant for his gravely wounded deputy and his deputy shooting the older Jordan brother to death. Doane was not trying to be a hero. He was being himself in doing what the dreadful circumstance demanded of him. Toby was not doing anything heroic in killing both Jordans but he learned something about Doane and himself that changed his mind about the value of the the lawman's tin star. 

As the life force ebbs from the old sheriff's body, a weird, almost mystical thing happens...

"Doane's face suddenly looked a little surprised, his eyes went past Toby to the sky. Toby looked up. A lark was high above them, circling and fluttering, directly overhead. 'a pretty bird,' Doane mumbled. 'A very pretty bird.'"

Carl Foreman purchased the rights to The Tin Star and turned it into his1952 classic Western screenplay, High Noon. In Foreman’s treatment of the story, the lawman is Marshal Will Kane, the man coming to kill him on the noon day train is Frank Miller. The killers waiting at the train station to help him are Frank's younger brother Ben Miller and Frank’s old gang members Jim Pierce and Jack Colby. They come to town on the Sunday that the justice of the peace, Judge Percy Mettrick presides over the wedding of Will and Amy Kane.

Murder in Brentwood, page 232, Fuhrman on Chris Darden: "Chris and I got nowhere on my testimony preparations. He asked me questions like, who were my favorite sports stars? (My answer: George Foreman, Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird.)

This is an overlapping consecutive letter code outside the parentheses for High Noon and The Tin Star. Inside the parentheses is the last name of the man who wrote the screenplay, the last name of the brothers in the story and the hero's last word before he bled to death.

CHRIS AND I GOT NOWHERE ON MY TESTIMONY PREPARATIONS. HE ASKED ME QUESTIONS LIKE, WHO WERE MY FAVORITE SPORTS STARS? (MY ANSWER: GEORGE FOREMAN, MICHAEL JORDAN, AND LARRY BIRD)

Chris Darden's In Contempt tells the story a bit differently. Page 199: "I asked about his sports heroes, and he listed George Foreman, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird." These lines won't get you High Noon or The Tin Star. You need both and a Jordan to play the game, to confirm the classic movie and the story it was based on.

A passenger train schedule is an apt metaphor for the relationship between both iterations of  M and the movies joined like train stations on a railroad line to The Tin Star. If trains don't run on time, bad things can happen, so watching the clock has been a critical part of operating train lines for as long as there have been train lines. Fritz Lang's M combines a clock and a bird in a cuckoo (coo-coo) clock that Elsie Berman's mother watches with growing apprehension when her daughter doesn't come home from school with the other kids.

Joseph Losey's "M" also has a mother who watches a clock with growing apprehension when her little blonde daughter named Elsie doesn't come home from school with the other children. This M has a train and a man named Martin who plays a tin flute. The train is a toy going around a track in a toy store window and the man named Martin is the child killer.  In High Noon, the train is real. A man named Martin once wore the tin star of the town's marshal but his hands are now too crippled by arthritis to fight four killers along side his former deputy Will Kane. He is bitter about the job, the exact opposite of Doane, who mocks that attitude in his deputy.

It will seem to some that Carl Forman changed much more of the The Tin Star than he did. It is essentially the same story with a few things added, dropped or switched around.

The generic mid-1880s Western town gets a name and a time shift to the mid-1870s. A loyal deputy sheriff became a marshal with no loyal deputies. A fulltime deputy who quits when the mortal hazard of the situation becomes clear becomes two deputies; a full-timer who quits out of injured pride and a volunteer who unvolunteers when the mortal hazard of the situation becomes clear. The justice of the peace gets the mayor's name. "K" in Kane" replaces "Do" in Doane. Poor Mexican houses became a rich Mexican woman's saloon and hotel. A widower becomes a groom. A deputy becomes a bride. A cemetery becomes a barbershop. A tombstone becomes a sheet of paper on the wall. A clock stands in for a bird. 

If you can see how Carl Forman edited some Tin Star elements in and out of his screenplay, you should see how Mark Fuhrman did likewise on the job, in his first book, and in his movie. If a tombstone can be a sheet of paper, a bird can be a clock.

This is what the fictional 1951 child killer engine and the fictional 1870s cars of the M train look like in  theater lobby movie posters.

 

  M (1951)

 

   High Noon

Robert Wilke                       Otto Kruger                      Harry Morgan                         Lloyd Bridges                     Gary Cooper

Robert Wilke is Jim Pierce. Wilke connects High Noon to Wichita by appearing in both. He died  in 1989 on Billie Fuhrman's birthday, March 28,

Otto Kruger is Judge Percy Mettrick, the Hadleyville Justice of the Peace . He was born on September 6, 1885. He died on his birthday in 1974

Harry Morgan is Will Kane's cowardly best friend Sam Fuller. The name "Morgan" is inseparable from Tombstone, Doc Holliday and the Earps.

Lloyd Bridges is Deputy Marshal Harvey Pell.

Kathy Jurado is Helen Ramirez, a wealthy Mexican widow who's leaving town on the train that that brings Frank Miller out of fear that the town will die and her life will be in Jeopardy when Will Kane is killed..

Garry Cooper as Marshal Will Kane wears a five-pointed star.

Grace Kelly  as Amy Kane, leave her man on their wedding day and returns to soot Jim Pierce in the back.  

Morgan Farley  All you need to peg him to Mark Fuhrman is the fact that he's in the movie, his first name is Morgan and his initials are MF.

Lon  Chaney Jr. is Martin Howe, the former town marshal who turns over his tin star to his deputy Will Kane. He was born on 2 10, 1906... 2 10.

The temporal setting for High Noon is roughly the late 19th century. If, however, we play detective with the evidence, we can narrow the range to the mid 1870s, at least 15 years earlier than the time of The Ten Star.  The 37-star American flag in the office of the Hadleyville Justice of the Peace means the year is before August 1, 1876 when Colorado became the 38th star. The Marshal and the men coming to kill him are all carrying single-action Colt .45 Peacemakers, first manufactured in 1873. The year of the High Noon shootout has to be somewhere between 1873 and 1876.

All things considered, it's probably 1874 or 1875, a suspicious 100 years before Mark Fuhrman's Murder in Greenwich story began.

 

Wichita

Wyatt Earp was truly brave and bold. He was also a five-star genius in the art and science of self-promotion. Wichita (1955) stars Joel McCrea as Wyatt Earp, Vera Miles as Laurie McCoy and Peter Graves as Morgan Earp. Lloyd Bridges and Robert Wilke are bad-guy cattle drovers.

 

Wichita tells a fictional story of Wyatt Earp coming to Wichita, Kansas in the 1870s with no intention of becoming a lawman. In this version of the Wyatt Earp town-taming legend, three great force converge in Wichita on the same day: The end of a cattle drive, a train stop, and Wyatt Earp. Fortunately for the forces of law and order, Wyatt is in the bank depositing the money he made as a buffalo hunter when four armed bank robbers bring out his nature as a "natural born lawman."  He foils the robbery single-handedly with dazzling gunplay. The town leaders are there to see him in action and press him to take the office of town marshal. He refuses.  It takes the killing of a child watching drunken cowboys on the street firing wildly into buildings to change his mind.

Robert Wilke's character starts the chaos by standing on a table in a saloon and firing into the ceiling. His drovers follow him onto the street, mount their horses and began galloping in every direction shooting in the general direction of the air. They shot a nameless dancehall girl in the arm and a little boy name Michael Jackson in the chest. The boy's mother cradles his lifeless body. Wyatt Earp takes a shotgun and the tin star of the do-nothing marshal quivering behind him and disarms the cowboys – all 20 of them.  

One more thing... Tex Ritter, who sang the Oscar-winning theme song for High Noon, sings the theme song for Wichita 

 

 Man of the West

You might have noticed that a constant in High Noon and Wichita  is Robert Wilke, the prolific character actor who died on Billie Fuhrman's birthday. You get him again in Man of the West (1958). You get Gary Cooper again, too, this time as a former outlaw named Link, and a character named Billie. Julie London is Billie Ellis. You don't need to know the story to know what it meant to Mark Fuhrman. You need to know that Billie was a Longhorn Palace saloon singer billed as "the girl with the golden voice." You need to know that the story begins with Link riding into town and Billie coming out of the saloon with her bags packed, looking wistfully at the sign with her name on it being taken down. They both go to the train station, get aboard and get kidnapped, assaulted and robbed.

 

 Murder in Greenwich

 

Murder in Greenwich (watch, in kitchen, calendar) High Noon barber shop clock on an office wall in a high-rise building at lunchtime.

 

 

The Tin Star:  Before Sheriff Doane went to the cemetery, the deputy who quit told him that the 4:10 train was on schedule. Talking to his dead wife's tombstone is the last thing Doane does before he dusts off the slab, clears away some weeds and walks out of the gate toward town. On his way down the hill, he hears shots and the sound of a train whistle. He sees smoke from the train, hears more shots and the train whistle again. The gunfight started without him or the young Jordan's older brother and Doane knows that it's going to get worse.

High Noon: Around five minutes before the train whistle blows, Jack Colby, Jim Pierce and Ben Miller remove their spurs in preparation for the imminent fight.

Meanwhile, Marshal Kane goes to the barbershop to clean up from a fistfight with his deputy. A man in back is pounding nails in a coffin. As Kane leaves you can see the time on the clock behind him and that the message on the wall is an ad outlined in the shape of a tombstone. It says, "Complete Funeral Services... Undertaking." 

The pendulum's swings on the clock in the barbershop and in marshal Kane's office powering the minute hand to 11:58 on its inexorably way to noon. Kane pulls a sheet of paper from his desk drawer and starts writing his last will and testament. He looks at the clock and back to the paper. Before he finishes writing, he hears the train whistle. The whole world seems to pause – except for the swinging pendulums on all the clocks in town, the train nearing the station and the smoke billowing from the train's smoke stack. The gunfight has not started prematurely because there is no one on Kane's side outside of his office to help him.

 

 

 
 
–Jasper