A middle aged woman who has always lived with her mother moves to a small town to become a manicurist at a barber shop. There is a man there who the locals call "Odd." He continually tries to die. That is, he walks in front of vehicles. He lies down in a parking space. He takes his hat off and puts it on his chest. Every day, the sheriff and a couple of locals lift him up and put him on the sidewalk. He seems to be a kind man but he thinks he is truly dead. The manicurist, played by Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher, takes an interest in him. She starts by rescuing a cat he is about to drown. Eventually, these two lonely souls start to spend time together until one day he pops the question. This is one of the weirdest of the stories in this series.
3 Reviews
Going away to live with the dead!?
blanbrn29 September 2020
This episode seven from season six of "Ray Bradbury Theater" called "The Dead Man" is one that's strange and odd as it involves a tale of two lonely people. Louise Fletcher(Nurse Ratched from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") is Miss Weldon a manicurist who moved to town and soon she finds everyone different only to meet a strange old man that the locals claim might be dead as simple Martin lays along the curb street side quite often. It seems like his fate is repeated over and over these two souls connect as the lonely connection works like magic as the two go away for good perhaps. Overall well written interesting story that's odd strange and different still a well done episode for the series.
"Crazy as a weasel down the chimney!"
classicsoncall13 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Odd Martin claims he drowned twenty years ago during a flood that destroyed his farm and livestock. The locals think he's a kook, except for one little boy who tells Martin that he knows the man is dead. A newly arrived manicurist arrives in town and takes a kindly fascination to the eccentric gentleman. A friendship follows between these two lonely souls, until one day Odd Martin decides to ask Ms. Weldon (Louise Fletcher) to marry him. Seeing as how he's already bought a dress she liked in a shop window, she agrees, to the astonishment of the townspeople.
This is one of those Bradbury stories that just seems to abruptly end leaving the viewer to reach their own conclusion. The young boy mentioned earlier follows the couple on their 'wedding day' to a cemetery, where they enter a mausoleum, and then the program is over. I won't even speculate on what kind of macabre ending might have been in store for Ms. Weldon, now Mrs. Martin. Maybe the best thing is to simply consider them the Odd Couple.
This is one of those Bradbury stories that just seems to abruptly end leaving the viewer to reach their own conclusion. The young boy mentioned earlier follows the couple on their 'wedding day' to a cemetery, where they enter a mausoleum, and then the program is over. I won't even speculate on what kind of macabre ending might have been in store for Ms. Weldon, now Mrs. Martin. Maybe the best thing is to simply consider them the Odd Couple.
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