The strange, almost unbelievable,
story of Robert Scott Carey
began on a very ordinary summer day.
I know this story better than anyone
because I am Robert Scott Carey.
- This is the way to spend a vacation.
- Mm-hmm.
I'm thirsty.
Mmm! That sun feels good.
- I'm thirsty.
- Interesting.
- A cold bottle of beer'd taste fine.
- Why don't you get it?
- Me?
- Mm-hm.
- I'm on vacation. All week.
- Well, so am I, my friend.
- Louise?
- Hmm?
- I think we should get married.
- We've been married six years.
- Really?
- Mm-hm.
Seems like six minutes.
I am not gonna get you that beer.
I provided the boat.
You provide the beer.
- Your brother provided the boat.
- I'll make you a deal.
- What?
- You get the beer, I'll get the dinner.
- How's that?
- OK, you got yourself a deal.
To the galley, wench.
Fetch me a flagon of beer.
I'm sorry, Captain, but we're
out of flagons. It'll have to be a can.
Out of flagons?
How are we to make the Philippines?
We're not going, sir.
We're going home at the end of the week.
Mutiny.
- Make 'em cold!
- Like ice.
- Scott, what was that?
- I don't know. Some kind of mist.
Look at your chest.
But then, on an equally ordinary day,
six months later.
- Morning, Joe.
- Morning, Mrs Carey.
- Looks like a nice day, huh?
- See you tomorrow.
Here, kitty-kitty-kitty.
Here, kitty-kitty-kitty. Come on, Butch.
That's a boy. There you go.
- Scott? Scott, are you dressed yet?
- I'll be right there.
All right.
- Lou?
- Yes, dear?
You sure you got the right
pants from the cleaners?
Just a second.
- You asked that yesterday morning.
- They still don't fit.
- They still too loose?
- The cuffs are draggin'.
They do look kinda big.
I dunno what that cleaner's doing,
but tell him to cut it out.
You're just losing weight.
It's very becoming, so don't complain.
- You want one or two eggs?
- One.
One?
Now that's why your pants don't fit.
- Lou?
- Yeah?
Hey, the shirt doesn't fit either.
It's your shirt.
It's got your monogram on it.
- What's that supposed...
- Eat your breakfast and forget it.
I know a lot of people who'd like to
lose weight. What's your secret?
- Maybe it's the cooking around here.
- Well, thanks a lot. Drink yourjuice.
- Lou, do me a favour.
- What, honey?
- Pick up a bathroom scale today.
- All right.
Still get five foot eleven inches,
Mr Carey.
- I've been six foot one since I was 17.
- Mm-hm.
- What's the weight?
- Still 174 and a quarter pounds.
I don't understand it.
That's a loss of almost ten pounds.
I told you,
you're probably overworking yourself.
You told me that when you overwork
you get nervous and lose weight.
But I've never lost that much weight.
Besides, I haven't been
particularly nervous lately.
Not eating wouldn't
make me lose height, would it?
Oh, I very much doubt if you've
been losing height, Mr Carey.
Why don't you put your things on?
You told me that you've been six
foot one since you were 17 years old.
That's right.
How many physical examinations
have you had since then?
Oh, the draft board, the Navy,
a life insurance physical.
That's not too many.
It's possible there might have been
errors made on all of them
as regards your height.
It often happens. A number of things
could cause such errors.
If you stood erect, you'd measure out
as taller than you actually are.
Or if your height was taken in the
morning, you'd measure out as taller.
Why's that?
Because people decrease in height
during the day.
See, the body weight compresses the
spinal discs, the bone joints and so on.
- I see. Two inches, Doctor?
- I wouldn't worry about it, Mr Carey.
As far as I can see
you're in perfect health.
Likely lost a little weight
due to an insufficient diet but...
People don't get shorter, Mr Carey.
They just don't get shorter.
What'd Charlie think about
your idea for the ad?
Huh? Oh, he thinks it has possibilities.
- Well?
- Four pounds.
- Up or down?
- Down.
That does it, my boy.
You're gonna start taking vitamins.
I'm gonna get you so fat
on ice cream and cake
you'll think you're
living in a child's paradise.
- I don't think that's gonna fix it.
- Then we'll see a doctor.
- You're due for a checkup anyway.
- I've already seen a doctor.
- When?
- A week ago.
Well, honey,
why didn't you say something about it?
Come here, Louise.
- Kiss me.
- You think that's gonna fix it, huh?
You didn't have to stretch.
You used to stand on your toes.
What? In your stocking feet?
- I'm getting smaller, Lou. Every day.
- Well, that's silly, honey.
People just don't get smaller.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
We'll go back to the doctor tomorrow.
I'm sure he's got a pill for it.
Don't worry, Butch. Everything's
gonna be all right. Go to bed.
Well, that's the last of them, Mr Carey.
- This has been a long week, Dr Bramson.
- I must have worn out your machine.
I needed two full sets of pictures
spaced several days apart.
I had to compare them before I...
Before I could be sure.
Sure of what, Doctor? What is it?
Relax, Doctor, you can't tell me
anything I haven't imagined.
You are getting smaller.
I... I don't profess to understand it,
Mr Carey.
There's no medical precedent
for what's happening to you.
I simply know that
you're getting smaller.
The X-rays prove it beyond any doubt.
But that's impossible.
That's what we've always believed,
Mrs Carey.
I'm gonna send you to the
California Medical Research Institute.
If there is an explanation
for your phenomenon, why...
They'll find it.
Then began a series of intensive tests.
I drank a barium solution,
and stood behind a fluoroscope screen.
They gave me radioactive iodine.
And an examination
with a Geiger counter.
I had electrodes fastened to my head.
Water restriction tests, protein bond
tests, eye tests, blood cultures,
X- rays and more X-rays.
Tests, endless tests.
And then one day in the third week
the final examination.
A paper chromatography test.
Now don't be despondent, Mr Carey.
At least we've found out
what is happening to you.
Gradual loss of nitrogen,
calcium, phosphorus.
- This test may tell us why.
- I hope so.
I think the strip should be dry by now.
We should find phospholipid,
amino acids, cholesterol,
creatinine, and protein.
These are the elements
most commonly found on the strip.
Mm-hm.
Wait a minute. This one doesn't belong.
It certainly doesn't belong.
Here, take a look.
Our analysis shows that
it's a rearrangement
of the molecular structure
of the cells in your body.
- You mean like a cancer?
- No.
No, more like an anti-cancer,
causing a diminution of all the organs.
Then you know what's
causing me to get smaller.
We think we do, Mr Carey.
That's why I asked you here.
Now I want you to tell me something.
Have you ever been accidentally exposed
to any kind of germ spray?
In particular, an insecticide,
a great deal of it.
- Insecticide?
- Exactly.
Has there ever been a time
when you were so exposed?
Do you remember that day
I told you about the truck?
Yes, about two months ago.
I was on my way to the store
through an alley.
As I was walking a truck turned in.
It was spraying trees.
- Is that what's causing me to...
- No, that was only the beginning.
You see, something happened to that
insecticide after it was in your system.
Something fantastic and unprecedented.
Something which, in layman's terms,
so affected the insecticide
that from a mildly virulent germ spray
it created deadly chemical
reversal of the growth process.
Have you been exposed to any
radioactivity in the past six months?
Oh, no, of course not. I don't come in
contact with anything like that. I...
Scott, wait a minute.
That day we were on the boat.
- The boat?
- Charlie's boat. Remember?
Well, yes, I remember.
The mist.
That mist!
You want me to drive, honey?
No, I'm all right.
Louise...
I want you to start thinking about us.
Our marriage.
Some awful things might happen.
There's a limit to your obligation.
Oh now, wait a minute.
Look, I love you. Don't you know that?
You love Scott Carey. He has a size
and a shape and a way of thinking.
- All that's changing now.
- Not a darn thing's changed.
When I married you I meant what I said.
And as long as you've got
this wedding ring on, you've got me.
Come on now, let's go home.
The truth is,
I just lost the Bannister account.
You know how big that account was.
Probably 40 per cent of my income.
It's gone now and I just can't afford to
send you your pay cheques any more.
You've done everything
that a brother possibly could do.
Look, I don't like to say this but...
There have been reporters
over at the plant.
Looks like somebody at the
medical centre talked about you.
I told them there was nothing in it,
but one of the reporters stayed behind.
He was from the
American Press Syndicate.
He said they might pay for the story.
If it's true.
Scott, the story's going to
break anyway eventually.
So whether you make them pay or not,
they're going to make the most of it.
- So make them pay.
- No, Charlie.
Well, think about it.
All right. I'll think about it.
But really, was there any choice?
We owed a great deal of money
and I had nojob.
There was no choice. None at all.
And so I became famous.
And still Robert Scott Carey,
known to a nation as The Incredible
Shrinking Man, keeps getting smaller.
How long will this phenomenon continue?
I want to apply for
an unlisted line please.
This is a special case.
My name is Louise Carey, my hus...
Carey. C-A-R-E-Y.
Now look, we've got to have an unlisted
line. That's all there is to it.
I... I talked to you yesterday.
- Has he come out yet?
- How big is he now?
- Have you seen him?
- He's got to come out sometime.
What's the television truck doing here?
We return you now to Magic Melody.
Yes, thank you very much.
Scott? Scott, I've...
- I've cancelled our phone.
- What?
I said, I've cancelled our phone.
They're gonna try to get us
an unlisted line sometime next week.
- What do you mean, they're gonna try?
- They're just gonna try.
A lot of people are
waiting for unlisted lines.
Didn't you tell them who you're married
to? Scott Carey, the shrinking freak?
- Don't.
- Use your influence.
- I'm a big man! I'm famous!
- Please don't.
Those reporters out there.
Why don't you tell them about it?
Give 'em a new angle for their...
for their papers!
Or will I save it for my book?
Yeah, that's what I'll do.
A whole chapter devoted to telephones
and one more joke
for the worid to laugh at!
Scott, people know. They realise.
They're not laughing at you.
- They're not?
- No.
Why not? It's funny, isn't it?
But it is. See how funny I am?
The child that looks like a man.
Go on, laugh, Louise.
Be like everyone else. It's all right.
Well, why can't you look at me?
Look at me!
Don't, Scott.
Will they just let us alone?
Will they just let us alone?
Lou, honey, I'm sorry. I must be losing
my mind, talking to you like this.
No, honey. I'm all right.
- I know what you must be suffering.
- Do you?
Yes, I guess it's been
a nightmare for you too.
Maybe we've forgotten how to hope.
But, Scott, there's so much to hope for.
Any day now the doctors
say they may find the antitoxin.
Sure. Lou, let's get out of this place
before we both go crazy.
Somewhere where nobody can find us.
All right, Scott. I'll...
I'll look for something.
And try... Try not to worry.
No, I'll let the doctors worry.
I'm two days behind on my book.
October 17th.
Height: 36-and-a-half inches.
Weight: 52 pounds.
We haven't been able to find a new house
and there still is no privacy,
no relief,
and no word from the medical centre.
- I fear that what life remains to me...
Hello? Yes, this is Carey.
- Louise!
- Yes, Scott?
The antitoxin, they found it.
Oh, Scott. Are you sure?
Dr Silver wants us down there.
Right away!
There's something you both
must understand.
We're working with unknown factors.
Nothing is guaranteed.
We're 50 per cent sure
this will be effective.
The other 50 per cent,
we'll just have to pray.
How long before we'll know?
Mr Carey will remain here
under observation for a week.
We should have the answer by then.
- Are you ready?
- Ready.
Weight: 52 pounds.
Height: 36-and-a-half inches.
What was last week's reading?
Weight: 52 pounds. Height:
It's all over, Scott.
You're gonna be all right.
How long will it take, Dr Silver?
To be normal again?
Put on your robe now.
That'll be all, Miss Maltby.
Mr Carey, we seem to have checked the
degenerative process of your disease.
We've won that much.
At this moment the growth capacity of
your body is as limited as any adult's.
Whether or not you grow again
is another question.
To help you,
we face a whole new set of problems.
Then I'll spend the rest of my life...
like this?
Mr Carey, I assure you,
we'll go on working.
Every day we'll push
our knowledge further
until one day we might
have the whole answer.
Thank you, Doctor.
My relationships with the worid
had ceased with everyone...
...except my wife.
And I knew I was driving Lou from me.
But burning inside, adding its own
hideous pressure to everything else,
was my desperate need for her.
- You want the paper, Scott?
- No. No thank you.
Well I think I'll turn in. Come on.
- Coming to bed?
- Yeah, soon.
- Well, good night then.
- Good night, Louise.
I felt puny and absurd.
A ludicrous midget.
Easy enough to talk of
soul and spirit and essential worth.
But not when you're three feet tall.
I loathed myself. Our home, the
caricature my life with Lou had become.
I had to get out. I had to get away.
For the first time since it happened,
I ran into the night. Alone.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Here it is,
folks! The greatest show in the Midwest!
Come on in and see all
the freaks and curiosities!
See Dolly Dumpling, the fat lady!
She weighs 840 pounds!
When she sits down,
she shakes and quivers
like a bowl ofjelly
on a cold and frosty morning!
See Flamo! Flamo, the Fire-eater!
Here is one of the greatest attractions
you'll ever see in your born days!
You will remember these sights
for the rest of your natural life!
Time for the big show.
I would like you to meet a few
of the exhibits here on the platform.
First we have Tiny Tina!
Here she is. 36-and-a-half inches
of feminine pulchritude.
You'll see freaks and curiosities
assembled from every part of the globe!
The most unusual aberrations
assembled under this tent!
Contrived by a tricky Mother Nature!
Here they are in all their glory!
This exhibit is not only entertaining,
it's educating...
Hello.
- Mind if I sit down?
- No. Please do.
- Don't be late, Clarice.
- I won't.
- Hi.
- Hi.
- Pass me the sugar, huh?
- Oh, sure.
I haven't seen you here before.
You with the carnival?
Oh, no, I... No.
- Just visiting then, huh?
- Yeah.
- I'm Clarice Bruce.
- My name's Scott Carey.
Hi, Scott.
Scott Carey?
I'm sorry,
maybe you don't want any company.
No, don't go.
I want you to stay. Talk to me.
- All right.
- How do you live with it, Miss Bruce?
- What do you do?
- I was born a midget.
It's the way I grew up. And now it's
happened to you and that's different.
Different? That's another
way of saying alone, isn't it?
Oh, but you're not alone now.
Still, it must be hard
to forget the way things were.
Yeah,
I'd like to burn it out of my mind.
Maybe the best way to begin
is to start thinking about the future.
- A future? In a worid of giants?
- I've lived with them all my life.
Oh, Scott, for people like you and me
the worid can be a wonderful place.
The sky is as blue as it is for the
giants. The friends are as warm.
- I wish I could believe that.
- You've got to believe that.
- Don't you?
- Yeah.
Give me time, Clarice. I'll learn.
- Oh! I'll be late for my show!
- Oh, look, can I see you again?
- Mmm. If you like.
- I would.
You know, Scott?
You're taller than I am.
May I?
Thank you.
That night I got a grip on life again.
I went back to work on my book.
It absorbed me completely.
I was telling the worid
of my experience.
And with the telling, it became easier.
- I think it's just fine, Scott.
- Do you really think so?
I'm not much of a writer.
Just tryin' to tell what it's like.
You don't know what it's meant to me,
meeting you.
- Someone who understands.
- But you're so much better now.
Thanks to you.
Aw, not to me. Yourself.
You just stopped running, that's all.
All I know is I can wake up in the
morning and want to live again.
Actually want to live.
It's a funny thing. Sometimes I begin
to think it's the worid that's changed.
- I'm the normal one
- That sounds like a good thing.
Everybody out of step but you and me.
Come on, I'll buy you a drink.
We can talk about another chapter.
What is it, Scott?
Two weeks ago I was taller than you.
You said so yourself.
- Yes, I remember, but...
- Well can't you see?
- I'm shorter now.
- Oh, Scott.
It's starting again. It's starting.
It's starting again!
Scott? Scott?
- Scott? Are you in there?
- Do you have to make such a racket?
- I told you what happens in there!
- I'm sorry, Scott. I try to be careful.
- Are you going out?
- Yes, for a little while.
- Where?
- Just to the corner. To the store.
- You'll come right back?
- Well of course I will.
Why don't you try to get some rest?
Dr Silver wants to see you tomorrow.
All right, go ahead.
Be sure the doors are locked!
Every day it was worse.
Every day a little smaller.
And every day I became more tyrannical,
more monstrous
in my domination of Louise.
Heaven knows how
she lived through those weeks.
Only I had the power to release her.
If I could find the courage
to end my wretched existence.
But each day I thought,
"perhaps tomorrow".
Tomorrow the doctors will save me.
Scott!
No. No. No.
Oh, Scott. Scott.
...drew deafening applause
when he announced that if elected
he will do everything in his power
to reduce taxes.
From Los ngeles today, a tragic story.
The passing of Robert Scott Carey.
The report of the death of the so-called
Shrinking Man comes from his brother.
Carey's death was the result of an
attack by a common house cat,
a former pet in the Carey home.
He was the victim of the most fantastic
ailment in the annals of medicine.
Thus ends the life of a man
whose courage and will to survive
lasted until the the very end.
A man whose fantastic story
was known to virtually every man,
woman and child in the civilised worid.
- Mr Carey?
- Yes?
- You may go up. She wants to see you.
- Is she all right?
The doctor gave her a heavy sedative
but it's hardly working at all.
- I see.
- I'll get that prescription filled.
- I'll be back in a minute.
- Fine.
My return to consciousness
was a plunge into a new level of pain.
I realised I had fallen into a box.
Its walls enclosed me
like some gigantic pit.
I had to escape out of the box.
Somehow I had to reach Louise,
to survive.
The stairs stretched above me
as far as I could see.
Cliff rising upon cliff.
I knew I could never scale them.
Louise!
Louise! The cellar! Look in the cellar!
Louise! Please look for me! Louise!
Eventually Louise would
come to the cellar.
Until then, I had to keep myself alive
with whatever resources I could discover
in my basement universe. And in myself.
The cellar floor stretched before me
like some vast primeval plain.
Empty of life. Littered with the relics
of a vanished race.
No desert island castaway
ever faced so bleak a prospect.
I had discovered a water supply,
and even a dwelling place.
Now, the search for food.
I knew my ill-fitting clothes
were unsuited
to the exertions that lay before me.
- You can't stay here, Louise. Not now.
- I... I don't know, Charlie.
- I don't know what I wanna do.
- Lou, let me help you.
You can stay with us,
but get out of here.
If I could just be sure.
Charlie, maybe he's hurt someplace.
- Maybe he's lost.
- We've looked everywhere. He's dead.
I'm his own brother. I wouldn't
say a thing like that if I wasn't sure.
- You saw the cat.
- All right, all right.
Charlie, have you thought
how horrible it must have been?
I just keep thinking that he needed me
and I wasn't there.
- I wasn't there.
- Louise.
You've got to get it out of your mind.
I'll never get it out of my mind.
I'll talk to the real estate people.
I never doubted that
sometime Louise would come.
I couldn't allow myself to doubt.
I had only to exist.
To search out enough food to sustain me.
I was driven by hunger.
And also by the horrible thought
that without nourishment,
the shrinking process was quickening.
I was weak and faint.
Yet I knew, in order to exist,
I must eat.
The food was still
a long climb ahead of me.
But now, stretching endlessly before me,
I found a deep abyss.
It was only a box and the space between.
Yet to me it was the Grand Canyon
and the Mammoth Caves combined.
Deep, dark, mysterious and dangerous.
There was no possible way to cross,
no matter how inventive,
how resourceful I thought myself.
This time, in sight of my goal,
it seemed as if I must meet defeat.
Suddenly I saw an opportunity,
if I could move the stick
to the other side.
I cursed myself. If only I were
a little bigger. A little stronger.
I realised there was
just this one chance,
and I had no choice, I had to take it.
If I could leap from the paint stick
and reach the other side...
But there was no time to think.
Only to act.
My prison.
Almost as far as I could see, a grave,
friendless area of space and time.
And I resolved that as Man had
dominated the worid of the sun,
so I would dominate my worid.
In my hunt for food,
I had become the hunted.
This time I survived.
But I was no longer alone
in my universe. I had an enemy.
The most terrifying
ever beheld by human eyes.
Charlie, there's a trunk I'd like to
take with me if you don't mind.
- It's in the basement. I'll show you.
- I'll put these in the car first.
Oh, all right.
Oh no, it's flooded!
The water heater.
I better have a look.
- Oh, this is terrible.
- I'll turn the water off.
Louise! Look for me! Louise! Charlie!
Charlie, I'm here! Charlie! Louise!
The water! Here in the water!
Charlie!
I smell gas. Is that pilot off?
I'll turn it off.
Listen to me! Louise!
Louise! Hear me! Please! Please!
- Can you fix it?
- There.
I'll get a plumber down here tomorrow.
Charlie!
- Where's your drain?
- It's there. It must be clogged.
Charlie! Look for me!
- Is that the trunk, Louise?
- Oh, yes, but don't bother about it.
- It's so wet. I'll pick it up later.
- It's OK.
I want you packed
and out of this house tonight.
- Is that everything, Louise?
- Yes, that's everything.
I still had my weapons. With these
bits of metal I was a man again.
If I was to die,
it would not be as a helpless insect
in thejaws of the spider monster.
A strange calm possessed me.
I thought more clearly
than I had ever thought before,
as if my mind were
bathed in a brilliant light.
I recognised that
part of my illness was rooted in hunger,
and I remembered the food on the shelf.
The cake threaded with spider web.
I no longer felt hatred for the spider.
Like myself, it struggled blindly
for the means to live.
If I was to fight it,
if I was to win the food,
then it must be now
while strength remained,
while I was still of sufficient size
to scale the wall.
It was not decision that
drove me to the crate, but reflex,
as instinctive as the spider's.
My legs trembled.
Not with fear, but weakness.
Yet somehow I felt within myself
a new source of power.
A giant strength,
urging me to the death struggle.
My enemy seemed immortal.
More than a spider, it was
every unknown terror in the worid,
every fear fused into
one hideous night-black horror.
Still, whatever else had happened,
my brain was a man's brain.
My intelligence
still a man's intelligence.
An idea came to me. The scissors.
Too heavy for me to employ as a weapon,
they might have another use.
If I could impale the monster
with my hook,
fastened by a line to the scissors,
then push the scissors off the ledge.
Whatever the risk, it was worth a try.
I knew, sooner or later,
it would come charging down that web,
skimming out blackly toward me.
One of us had to die.
Come on down!
Come on, you devil, I'm waiting for you!
Come on!
This was the prize I had won.
I approached it
in an ecstasy of elation.
I had conquered. I lived.
But even as I touched the dry,
flaking crumbs of nourishment
it was as if my body
had ceased to exist.
There was no hunger. No longer
the terrible fear of shrinking.
Again I had the sensation of instinct.
Of each movement, each thought
tuned to some great directing force.
I was continuing to shrink, to become...
What? The infinitesimal?
What was I?
Still a human being?
Or was I the man of the future?
If there were other bursts of radiation,
other clouds drifting
across seas and continents,
would other beings follow me
into this vast new worid?
So close,
the infinitesimal and the infinite.
But suddenly I knew they were really
the two ends of the same concept.
The unbelievably small and the
unbelievably vast eventually meet,
like the closing of a gigantic circle.
I looked up,
as if somehow I would
grasp the heavens, the universe,
worids beyond number. God's silver
tapestry spread across the night.
And in that moment I knew the
answer to the riddle of the infinite.
I had thought in terms of
Man's own limited dimension.
I had presumed upon Nature.
That existence begins and ends
is Man's conception, not Nature's.
And I felt my body dwindling,
melting, becoming nothing.
My fears melted away
and in their place came acceptance.
All this vast majesty of creation,
it had to mean something.
And then I meant something too.
Yes, smaller than the smallest,
I meant something too.
To God, there is no zero.
I still exist.