In the song ODE TO BILLY JOE, one of the line is as follows;
“And she and Billy Joe was throwin’ somthin’ off the Tallahachie Bridge.”
The plot of the song’s storyline dosen’t really give a clue as to what the tossed object is, although I understand a 1976 movie which explains things some.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I still don’t know.
What do you think the object tossed over the bridge was?
IIRC from that cheesy movie (ah, the memories of Robby, what the hell was his name? oh yeah, Benson–and his sensitive-boy roles in the 70’s— where is he now?), the whole throwing something off the bridge thing was never addressed, and the song sort of leaves it up to the listener’s imagination.
[hijack] what is that deal called in movies, like the unknown item in the briefcase in ‘Pulp Fiction’? There’s a name for it and it’s escaping me right now [/hijack]
It’s a MacGuffin.
If memory serves me—they threw HIS doll off the bridge.
I think of the GLOWING item in the briefcase in PULP as TARINTINO’S homage to a 50s B/W “atom bomb/radiation” scifi B-movie that I just can’t think of the name of right now. SCORSESE has talked about it too. They didn’t show you what was in THAT briefcse either. A girl opens it, it glows and she screams.
THINK that is what is known as a RED HERRING.
Nope, a McGuffin.
A Red Herring is something thrown in to mislead you. You focus all your attention on the red herring and thereby don’t see the real answer.
And your excessive use of ALL CAPS is annoying. Learn vB codes (they let you bold and italicize and even underline). Thanks.
Uh… let’s play nice.
If I remember (it’s been a while since I’ve heard the song) somebody is missing, “she and Billy Joe was throwin’ somthin’ off the Tallahachie Bridge”, and later, Billy Joe jumped off the bridge. I always figured that “she” and Billy Joe had something to do with the missing person, probably disposing the body and Billy Joe felt guilty and did the suicide thing.
Now I’ll have to go check the lyrics and see if I’m even near the point.
There’s a book, too. Billy Joe jumps off the bridge because of guilt----but not for killing someone. He’d had a drunken homosexual experience and was devastated.