There are a lot of twists and turns in this movie, too many to detail, but it zips along at a good pace. “Impossible!” says the shrink that he has desperately sought out amnesia can last, at most, maybe two months - not two years!īut when a nervous pro-wrestling-addicted schmo practically kidnaps him in his apartment, and a big plug ugly starts taking shots at him in the park, and people he knows - or thought he knew well - either wind up dead or are plotting to kill him, it occurs to David Stillwell that he will have to retrieve his lost memories - and fast! Unknown to him, buried deeply in his subconscious is the knowledge of something - and this is no exaggeration - that could completely change the world forever. Director: Edward Dmytryk.ĭavid Stillwell has managed to do the impossible, at least according to a nervous psychologist who presumably knows about these things: While David has spent the last two years living and working in New York, he has absolutely no memory of any of it. Writers: Peter Stone (screenplay) and Howard Fast (uncredited based on his 1952 novel Fallen Angel, as by Walter Ericson).
Broden), Anne Seymour (Frances Calvin), House B. Cast: Gregory Peck (David Stillwell), Diane Baker (Shela), Walter Matthau (Ted Caselle), Kevin McCarthy (Josephson), Jack Weston (Lester), Leif Erickson (Crawford Gilcuddy), George Kennedy (Willard), Robert H. I never bought the magazine myself, thinking that the fiction in it was always outweighed by the scientific articles in each issue, of which I had much less time for at the time.
Maybe I’m wrong, but if I’m right, we the readers today are the losers for it.īut it should also be noted that it was Omni (a slick magazine with connections with Penthouse, and generally assumed to be rather sophisticated) that first published it, not Analog or Asimov’s. This rollicking romp of a story may have a harder time of it being accepted for publication today, based as it is on the emphasis on the male perception of the ideal woman, much less ending up in a “Best of the Year” anthology (and the lead-off story, to boot). Keep in mind that this story was written when men’s magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse were at their peaks of popularity. Which of course, when Galatea comes of age, it does. What he suggests is a “wild” factor, a random ingredient that would also make her interesting. He’s commissioned in this highly amusing tale to create just that: a young and attractive woman, perfect in every way: intelligent but compliant, perceptive but instantly available that is to say, completely perfect in every way.īut as Manwright explains to his client, such a woman would also be completely boring. The word “biodroid” may be as new to you as it was to me, but it didn’t me take long to figure out what one is, and Dominie Regis Manwright is the number one craftsman in the field of making them, and always to his client’s complete specifications.
Collected in Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester(Vintage, 1997). Reprinted in The Best of Omni Science Fiction, edited by Ben Bova & Don Myrus (1980) and The Best Science Fiction of the Year #9, edited by Terry Carr (Del Rey/Ballantine, 1980). ALFRED BESTER “Galatea Galante, the Perfect Popsy.” Novella.
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