- Joined
- Jul 29, 2009
- Messages
- 6
Here's a remarkable example of cryptomnesia—the most remarkable example of the phenomenon I have ever experienced. Twice as a child I watched a film on television about a scientist (of the mad type) who has invented a weather-control machine, which malfunctions and plunges England into arctic conditions. I distinctly remember watching it both times with my mother, but when I mentioned it to her some years later, probably in my teens, she had absolutely no recollection of it. And I could no longer remember what it was called or even who was in it. Identifying it grew in time into a quest for me—a quest that would last the greater part of half a century. But no book I ever consulted, no website I ever referred to provided so much as a clue as to what it was. And I never knew it to be shown again.
Then, on 19 April this year, something I read in Fortean Times made me think of it for the myriadth time. That night I dreamt I had emailed several film historians, asking them to identify it. One evidently had the answer, for he had sent me a clip from it, which I sat down to watch. To my surprise the scientist was played by Benny Hill. I woke with a start. "What a silly dream!" I thought, and soon returned to sleep. A cursory check of the actor's filmography later that morning revealed nothing that seemed germane. (I hadn't really expected it to.) A more meticulous check five days later, however, found me reading about Who Done It? (1956), in which, "posing as a 'mad professor', Benny demonstrates a machine that 'controls' the weather, with disastrous results."* I immediately ordered it on DVD, and it indeed proved to be the film I remembered. Strange to think that buried in some corner of my brain, unaccessed for decades, must have been a memory of Benny Hill playing the scientist in it—playing a private detective employed to impersonate the scientist, to be precise. Though I certainly knew who he was as a child, never so far as I know had I associated him with it in all the years of my quest.
For the record, Who Done It? was as far as I can tell broadcast only twice in the London area (where I have always lived) in my childhood: on 19 May 1966, when I was 12 days short of my fourth birthday, and 27 June 1968, by which time I had of course turned six.
* www.amazon.com/product-reviews/6304397623.
Then, on 19 April this year, something I read in Fortean Times made me think of it for the myriadth time. That night I dreamt I had emailed several film historians, asking them to identify it. One evidently had the answer, for he had sent me a clip from it, which I sat down to watch. To my surprise the scientist was played by Benny Hill. I woke with a start. "What a silly dream!" I thought, and soon returned to sleep. A cursory check of the actor's filmography later that morning revealed nothing that seemed germane. (I hadn't really expected it to.) A more meticulous check five days later, however, found me reading about Who Done It? (1956), in which, "posing as a 'mad professor', Benny demonstrates a machine that 'controls' the weather, with disastrous results."* I immediately ordered it on DVD, and it indeed proved to be the film I remembered. Strange to think that buried in some corner of my brain, unaccessed for decades, must have been a memory of Benny Hill playing the scientist in it—playing a private detective employed to impersonate the scientist, to be precise. Though I certainly knew who he was as a child, never so far as I know had I associated him with it in all the years of my quest.
For the record, Who Done It? was as far as I can tell broadcast only twice in the London area (where I have always lived) in my childhood: on 19 May 1966, when I was 12 days short of my fourth birthday, and 27 June 1968, by which time I had of course turned six.
* www.amazon.com/product-reviews/6304397623.
