If you haven’t watched the short “Incident on Marmont Ave.” You really should before you read this post.
Back when I was in high school in the late 70’s and early 80’s there was a group of friends that used to hang out together. One friday night several of us met up to go out and do something and we were looking for Tracy. Being way before kids had mobile phones like today we called Tracy’s dad and he said she was baby sitting in the Belmont Hills. He gave us the phone number and we called up to the house. Tracy answered and told us the kid had gone to sleep and we were welcome to come hang out, but bring a pizza or something because she was starving.
It took us about an hour to find the house and when we arrived, pizza in tow, Tracy was standing in the front door freaking out.
“Oh my God, someone was in the house!”
“What???”
Then, after getting her to calm down a bit, we got the whole story out of her.
After she had hung up the phone with us some time had passed and she attempted to make another phone call. The line was acting weird and it sounded like maybe another handset was off the hook. You got to remember this was before EVERYONE had cordless phones and in this house, everything was wired.
She began to investigate the house.
Now, its important to know the layout of this house. First of all, it was on a hill and the house was laid out in an inverted fashion, meaning, the bedrooms where on the lower level and the living area was upstairs. This was because you entered the house on the uphill side of the property. Its a fairly common layout if you are in a hilly area. It was also a very hot night so Tracy was sitting in the living room, which was on the back of the house with the view of the valley and the front door was left open to get a breeze thru the room.
As you walked in the front door, the first thing you saw was the steps to the ground floor where the bedrooms were, there was a short hallway next to the stairs that headed back to the living room and the kitchen was to the left of the stairs.
When Tracy noticed the phone was not working well after we had talked to her she went down stairs only to notice that the handset in the family room/rumpus room downstairs was off the hook and the curtain which was pulled shut in front of the sliding glass door was actually pulled out the sliding glass door and pinched in the now closed but NOT locked sliding door. Tracy had LOCKED that door earlier in the evening.
She immediately freaked out, called the police and checked on the little girl. We arrived BEFORE the police did.
After a complete sweep of the property and the house, checking every closet and under and behind ANYTHING that could hide a person, the police told us to keep the door shut and they left us behind to wait for the parents to return.
While waiting in the front hall, front door closed, for the parents an VERY STARTLING sound came from the garage which made all of US jump but it was just the garage door opening as the parents pulled in to the driveway.
After being informed what had happened, the mother rushed to her baby down stairs who was licking a lollypop. When the mother asked the child who gave her the candy, the kid said, “the man did”. The mother frightened asked, “you mean the Police man?” to which the child responded… “No, the other man”.
As for the short film that Barry and Janie produced, I had no idea that Barry and Mitch were doing THIS script for their 5KMK3 movie. When I walked into the suite to see the fruits of Barry’s first day of cutting with Steve Navrat, who I work with, I asked if I could see what they had done so far.
I FREAKED out when I got to the end and had not remembered that I had told this story to Barry a year prior during another job we worked on together. All the way thru the cut I was muttering, “wow, something very similar to this happened to me”.
I feel disturbed when I hear the dialog that Janie wrote for William Mapothor. It’s so believable and creepy. Interestingly enough, as we screened this story and shared with friends and colleagues the few comments that we got over and over were about the UNBELIEVABILITY of things that happened in the story that, amazingly enough actually DID happen in real life. For example, “Am I really supposed to believe that this guy just HAPPENED upon the house with a wide open door and slipped in and out in the dark of night?” That, after all, is one of the things that is EXACTLY like it was in real life. Some creep taking advantage of a situation.
My hope is that everyone who sees this will hug their children a little tighter and keep an ever vigilant eye out for them.
BTW… the house was not on Marmont Ave. I’m not sure where Barry and Janie got that from.