Dahl Study: Royal Jelly

My author study of Roald Dahl started with a reading of his Collected Stories while watching the accompanying episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Each Friday I'll recap a story and show (with spoilers, just so you know), but I encourage you to read and watch them on your own if you're interested!

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"Royal Jelly" from Collected Stories (read 1/9/19)

I had no clue what this one would be about, but once I started, I was hooked. A beekeeper is reading about royal jelly in a magazine. Royal jelly is made by bees to make a queen rich and healthy, and studies have been done on rats with similar results. When the beekeeper and his wife have a baby after nine years of trying, they are upset that she is rapidly losing weight. The wife is stressed, and when her husband drones on and on about royal jelly, she keeps picturing him as a bee excitedly buzzing around. Her husband reveals that he has been feeding the baby royal jelly, which helped her grow rapidly. The wife is pleased, but then gets worried. The husband reveals he has been taking it, too - that's how they finally had a baby after nine years of trying!

"Royal Jelly" from Tales of the Unexpected (viewed 1/9/19)

This started off like the story, but the beekeeper gave an interview on TV instead of reading about royal jelly in a magazine. It made me wonder why it took him so long to use royal jelly with his daughter, since he knew about it and had been using it on himself already. The ending is pretty hokey, with the man slurring his "s"s into "zzzz"s and the end fading out with a weird screen effect and a scream, like a cheaply made YouTube clip. Check it out on my Instagram account and let me know what you think!

Dahl Study: The Way Up to Heaven

My author study of Roald Dahl started with a reading of his Collected Stories while watching the accompanying episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Each Friday I'll recap a story and show (with spoilers, just so you know), but I encourage you to read and watch them on your own if you're interested!

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"The Way Up to Heaven" from Collected Stories (read 1/6/19)

A woman gets incredibly anxious about making appointments on time (I could totally relate to this, and felt anxious with her in many parts of the story!). Her husband often makes her wait a few minutes for him, and her eye starts to twitch. Before leaving for a long trip to Paris, he makes her wait and antagonizes her about her anxiety and punctuality. He runs back to the house for something. She waits, then starts to go after him. She changes her mind and leaves him. When she returns, she seems to know something is up and calls a repairman to come fix her elevator. I guess she knew he was trapped in there? I'm not sure.

"The Way Up to Heaven" from Tales of the Unexpected (viewed 1/6/19)

The film closely followed the story, but clarified a lot for me. As soon as I saw the elevator was metal/mesh, I understood the ending. There was also a clarification in that the wife heard her husband calling for her from inside the house when she went back to look after him. She peeked through the mail slot before leaving him there. She knew he was trapped, but might have just left him hanging. She doesn't seem surprised or sad when she comes back from her trip and he's still there. She also went to New York instead of Paris - I wonder why the change?