MovieChat Forums > On Borrowed Time (1939) Discussion > *** SPOILER *** Plot/logic hole.

* SPOILER * Plot/logic hole.

posted 13 years ago by schroeber
3 replies | jump to latest

Only people who are on Death's list can see him and Pud could see him before Death was stuck in the tree. So, Pud was on the list...BUT how would Pud have died if Death had not fooled him into climbing the fence? The fence did not exist before Death became stuck and Death was tricked into getting stuck in the tree.

Even if Pud was destined to fall off some other fence without Death's encouragement, the fall in itself is not enough to kill Pud, in the end he's given a mercy killing by Gramps(who, if things had gone according to plan, should have died much earlier from a heart attack, it seems).

Therefore: Death killed Pud out of boredom or spite and had planned to do so from the beginning.

Or: Pud was destined to die shortly after Gramps and Death just thought to speed things up.

[–] mbcullen 10 years ago

Actually, right after the fall, the young lady in the kitchen told her new husband the doctor said Pud should have died from the fall. But with death in the tree he didn't.

[–] IceCreamKimi 9 years ago

I came here to find the answer to this exact same question.

Clearly at the beginning when Pud was able to see Mr Brink it is implied that Pud was to die sometime soon.

However the part that is confusing to me is that Mr Brink did something to hypnotize Pud as he was on top of the fence (the part where Pud felt funny looking into Mr Brink's eyes). So did death mean to make Pud fall and break his back to try to hasten Gramps to let him down? Or did death make a mistake and only wanted to touch Pud's hand to take him to the next life, and the fall was an accident?

I'm a bit unclear about that. Was this part different in the stage productions?

[–] Underdog_73 (770) 7 years ago

Mr. Brink only meant to touch him. He later says he didn't mean to hurt the boy. Only to take him.