Dip in the Pool

Last updated

"Dip in the Pool" is a macabre short story by British writer Roald Dahl, originally published in the 19 January 1952 edition of The New Yorker . It later appeared in the collection Someone Like You (1953).

Contents

Plot summary

On a British cruise ship, there is a betting pool wherein passengers try to correctly guess the number of miles the ship will travel that day, within ten miles above ("high field") or below ("low field") the captain's own guess.

On a stormy day, a passenger named William Botibol bids two hundred pounds on "low field", the inclement weather having significantly slowed down the ship. He is gambling largely with money he doesn't have (it represents years of his and his wife's savings), but he views it as worth the risk.

The next morning, Botibol wakes up to find the sky is clear and the ship is moving very fast to make up for lost time. Horrified, he decides that to slow down the ship he will jump overboard, dressed as if for tennis so he can easily swim. This way, the ship will have to stop and turn around to rescue him.

Seeking out potential eyewitnesses, Botibol ventures to the rear of the ship where he encounters an elderly woman. After striking up a casual conversation to ensure that she notices him and will raise the alarm when he falls into the water, he then surreptitiously leaps off the end of the ship. Yelling for help as he plunges into the water beneath him, he captures the woman's attention. Initially, she seems unsure how to react, but she eventually relaxes and watches as Botibol, arms waving madly and shouting, disappears into the distance.

A matronly woman, evidently a caregiver, soon arrives on the deck and reprimands the older woman for wandering off without her. The older woman does not reply directly but instead comments offhandedly about a man who "dived overboard... with all his clothes on" – a remark that earns a stern "Nonsense!" from the caregiver. The elderly woman – who, unbeknownst to Botibol, is evidently a dementia patient – allows the caregiver to lead her away across the deck, saying "Such a nice man. He waved to me." [1]

Television adaptations

In 1958, the story was adapted for television by Alfred Hitchcock for his anthology program Alfred Hitchcock Presents . [2] The Daily Telegraph called the adaptation "another wickedly gleeful Dahl tale of death and fatuity". [3]

The story was also adapted for a 1979 episode of Tales of the Unexpected . [4] [Note 1]

Notes

  1. Although a later Dahl story, Mr. Botibol , also features a protagonist with the same surname, the two stories are otherwise unconnected. Nevertheless, when the two stories were adapted for Tales of the Unexpected , the same actor (Jack Weston) was cast as Botibol in both episodes.

Related Research Articles

<i>Alfred Hitchcock Presents</i> American television anthology series

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series created, hosted and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It features dramas, thrillers and mysteries. Between 1962 and 1965 it was renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Hitchcock himself directed only 18 episodes during its run.

<i>Lifeboat</i> (1944 film) 1944 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Lifeboat is a 1944 American survival film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story by John Steinbeck. It stars Tallulah Bankhead and William Bendix, alongside Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee. The film is set entirely on a lifeboat launched from a passenger vessel torpedoed and sunk by a Nazi U-boat.

John Collier (fiction writer) British writer

John Henry Noyes Collier was a British-born author and screenwriter best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1950s. Most were collected in The John Collier Reader ; earlier collections include a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which won the International Fantasy Award and remains in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Wyndham Lewis, and Paul Theroux. He appears to have given few interviews in his life; those include conversations with biographer Betty Richardson, Tom Milne, and Max Wilk.

<i>Rich and Strange</i> 1931 film

Rich and Strange, released in the United States as East of Shanghai, is a 1931 romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock during his time in the British film industry. The film was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville, and Val Valentine from the 1930 novel by Dale Collins. The title is an allusion to words of Ariel's song "Full fathom five" in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

<i>Switch Bitch</i>

Switch Bitch (1974) is a book of adult short stories by British writer Roald Dahl. Four stories, originally published in Playboy between 1965 and 1974, are collected. They are linked by themes of rape by deception: in each one some major act of cunning, cruelty, or hedonism underpins the sexuality.

<i>Tales of the Unexpected</i> (short story collection)

Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected is a collection of 16 short stories written by British author Roald Dahl and first published in 1979. All of the stories were earlier published in various magazines, and then in the collections Someone Like You and Kiss Kiss.

"Lamb to the Slaughter" is a 1954 short story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only 17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock. The episode was ranked #59 of the Top 100 Episodes by TV Guide in 2009. The story was adapted for Dahl's British TV series Tales of the Unexpected. Dahl included it in his short story compilation Someone Like You. The narrative element of the housewife killing her husband and letting the policemen partake in eating the evidence was used by Pedro Almodóvar in his 1984 movie What Have I Done to Deserve This?, with a leg of mutton.

<i>Jamaica Inn</i> (film) 1939 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Jamaica Inn is a 1939 British adventure thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1936 novel of the same name. It is the first of three of du Maurier's works that Hitchcock adapted. It stars Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in her first major screen role. It is the last film Hitchcock made in the United Kingdom before he moved to the United States.

"The Voice in the Night" is a short story by English writer William Hope Hodgson, first published in the November 1907 edition of Blue Book Magazine.

Henry Slesar American novelist

Henry Slesar was an American author, playwright, and copywriter. He is famous for his use of irony and twist endings. After reading Slesar's "M Is for the Many" in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock bought it for adaptation and they began many successful collaborations. Slesar wrote hundreds of scripts for television series and soap operas, leading TV Guide to call him "the writer with the largest audience in America."

Stanley Bernard Ellin was an American mystery writer. Ellin was born in Brooklyn, New York. After a brief tenure in the Army, at the insistence of his wife, Ellin began writing full time. While his novels are acclaimed, he is best known for his short stories. In May 1948, his first sale, and one of Ellin's most famous short stories, "The Specialty of the House", appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

"Man from the South" is a short story by Roald Dahl originally published in Collier's in 1948. It has been adapted several times for television and film, including a 1960 version that aired as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and starred Steve McQueen, Neile Adams, and Peter Lorre.

"Galloping Foxley" is a short story by Roald Dahl first published in Town & Country in 1953. It was included in the short-story collection Someone Like You, and was later adapted into an episode of Tales of The Unexpected.

<i>Seven Waves Away</i> 1957 film by Richard Sale

Seven Waves Away is a 1957 British adventure film directed by Richard Sale and starring Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan, and Stephen Boyd. When his ship goes down, an officer has to make an agonizing decision on his overcrowded lifeboat.

"The Hitch-Hiker" is a short story by Roald Dahl that was originally published in July 1977 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later included in Dahl's short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. The story is about a man who picks up a hitch-hiker whilst driving to London. The pick-pocketing of a policeman's notebook during a traffic stop closely follows "Hitch-Hike", a 1960 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents based on a short story by Ed Lacy.

"Poison" is a short story written by Roald Dahl that was originally published in June 1950 in Collier's. In 1950 it was adapted for the radio programme Escape. In 1958 it was turned into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself. In 1980 it was adapted as the fifth episode of the second series of Tales of the Unexpected.

"Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat" is a short story by Roald Dahl that first appeared in the 1959 issue of Nugget. The story is Dahl's variation on a popular anecdote dating back at least to 1939: a married woman receives a glamorous mink coat from a man with whom she had an affair. She hopes to sneak the coat into her home without arousing her husband's suspicions, but soon discovers her husband has his own plans.

"Mr. Botibol" is a short story by Roald Dahl, first collected in 1980 in the short story collection More Tales of the Unexpected by Penguin.

Disappearance of Rebecca Coriam 2011 disappearance from cruise ship

Early on the morning of 22 March 2011, Rebecca Coriam, a British crewmember on the cruise ship Disney Wonder, was captured by CCTV in the crew lounge, having a phone conversation that appeared to be causing her some emotional difficulty. Several hours later, she missed the beginning of her work shift and could not be located anywhere aboard the ship, then off the Pacific coast of Mexico. Her disappearance was the first such incident in the history of Disney Cruise Line.

SS <i>Margaret Olwill</i> Steam-powered wooden barge on Lake Erie

SS Margaret Olwill was a shipping vessel originally constructed in 1887 to transport goods on Lake Erie. It was rebuilt twice to new specifications. It was wrecked in 1899 in an unexpected June storm with the loss of at least eight lives.

References

  1. Emmott, Catherine (2003). "Reading for pleasure: a cognitive poetic analysis of 'twists in the tale' and other plot reversals in narrative texts". In Gavins, Joanna; Steen, Gerard (eds.). Cognitive Poetics in Practice. London: Routledge. pp. 150–151. ISBN   9780415277983 . Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  2. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Dip in the Pool (1958)". Internet Movie Database.
  3. DVDs of the week: Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season 3, Rescue Dawn and more, by Philip Horne, at the Daily Telegraph , published 12 April 2008; retrieved 18 May 2014
  4. "Tales of the Unexpected: A Dip in the Pool (1979)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 26 December 2015.