User Reviews

As a young man, Ray Bradbury hitched a ride to Mexico to see the famed "Mummies of Guanajuato"---mummified corpses that had been unearthed to make room for new "tenants", as a result of delinquent payments on their graves (the custom was outlawed in 1958). Bradbury was horrified yet fascinated, and "The Lifework of Juan Diaz" was one of two short stories that resulted from his pilgrimage to Mexico.

First published in the September, 1963 issue of PLAYBOY, Bradbury himself adapted JUAN DIAZ a year later as an hour-long teleplay for Hitchcock's TV series. It is one creepy and unsettling story---but, as the author said to me "It's a LOVE story", and in that respect, it is absolutely unique: a tale of a man whose deathbed pledge to help feed his family from the afterworld is fulfilled only after a battle of daring, wits, and legal maneuvering between the deceased man's courageous widow and the malevolent, deceitful gravedigger, the "keeper of dry souls."

Bradbury's lyrical, dreamlike original becomes somewhat padded and clichéd in terms of its ethnic portrayals, but these flaws are quickly overshadowed by the very effective art direction, set (and mummy!) design, pitch-black b&w photography, tour-de-force performance by Frank Silvera AND -- let's not forget--- Bernard Herrmann's tragic, wearying processional-like musical score, with a ponderous accompanying rhythm ingeniously derived from the famous Habanera from Bizet's opera "Carmen."

Unfortunately, some of the major dialogue scenes are flat and totally lacking in tension, especially the crucial, decisive scene between the gravedigger, Maria, and her brother Riccardo, the chief of police, as they argue over the legal ownership of Juan Diaz's mummy. This is the sort of character-driven, intensely interactive scene that could benefit from a well-paced, high-voltage OPERATIC setting (hint, hint--check Amazon.com under "Music.")

But any quibbles about the slack pace and occasional padding are brushed aside in the final moments of this episode, as Maria Diaz, having done her part to bring her husband's deathbed pledge to fruition, approaches his corpse (a remarkable likeness of actor Alejandro Rey), and quietly, reverently begs for his forgiveness. It is only then--in the very last seconds of the show---that Herrmann's music changes from its mournful dirge and blossoms into a radiant, liturgical "Amen"...as the dulled, lifeless eyes of the mummy seem to glow, thus affirming celestial approval for Maria and her deed.

It is stunning...one of the most emotional moments on film that I know of; should we be repulsed?..or should we burst into tears at the beauty of this most touching and transcendental ending? That's the brilliance of what the master-author Ray Bradbury, director Norman Lloyd, and composer Bernard Herrmann accomplished in this intriguing piece of mid-60's weekly TV fare.

I saw this a few nights ago for the first time in many years, and it retained its impression on me. It is not just one of the creepiest teleplays I have ever seen (and there ARE such mummy displays in Mexico) but one of the most moving. Lovely Pina Pellicer plays a widow with young children who must come up with a way to support and feed her and her children after her husband dies. The most moving part occurs just at the end when she stands before her home mummy display and speaks to her husband, begging him to understand and forgive her for what she has had to do to survive. What happens then is reminiscent of the scene in the Boris Karloff "The Mummy" when Im-Ho-Tep is recalled to life when the young Egyptologist reads from the Scroll of Thoth. One of the most memorable of all the Alfred Hitchcock entries!

A dishonest cemetery caretaker 'rents' gravesites to the families of departed loved ones, and if they can't pay, the bodies are exhumed and committed to his own personal catacomb display. That's the premise for this eerily creepy story set in a small Mexican village where the graveyard is running out of space for future burials. Knowing that his end was near, Juan Diaz (Alejandro Rey) negotiated a forty-peso price for a two-year plot rental, but after only a year, caretaker Alejandro (Frank Silvera) came calling on the deceased's wife Maria (Pina Pellicer) to renew the space. Unable to do so, Alejandro digs up the corpse, and brings it to his underground tomb. Juan's young son Jorge (Larry Domasin) is taunted by his playmates to visit his father, and he reluctantly does so, taking care to place a rose stem in the corpse's lifeless hand. It may not have been on their mind at the time, but when Jorge and his mother are almost caught by Alejandro in the darkness of the catacomb, they sneak the body of Juan out as the caretaker flees in terror. In the light of day however, Alejandro drags the chief of police (Valentin de Vargas) to the Diaz residence to reclaim the body. It helped that Chief Ricardo was Maria's brother, but it was more her complicated logic that helped persuade both her brother and Alejandro that the body of her husband was a papier-mâché 'toy', and that the likeness belonged to her family. The repeated use of the term 'toy' bothered me somewhat, as if it trivialized the dire situation, but in the end, Maria's argument, backed by her brother, convinced Alejandro to drop the matter. The closing scene revealed how Juan Diaz, poor throughout his life, was able to provide for his family's meager existence via the few centavos tourists were willing to pay to view his corpse in the 'Juan Diaz Museum', a promise he made to care for his family after his death.