The Ransom of Red Chief
"The Ransom of Red Chief" | |
---|---|
Short story by O. Henry | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Comedy |
Publication | |
Published in | Whirligigs[1] |
Publication type | story collection |
Publisher | Doubleday, Page |
Media type | short story |
Publication date | 1907 |
"The Ransom of Red Chief" is a short story by O. Henry first published in the July 6, 1907 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It follows two men who kidnap and demand a ransom for a wealthy man's son. Eventually, the men are overwhelmed by the boy's spoiled and hyperactive behavior, so they pay his father to take him back.
The story and its main idea have become a part of popular culture, with many children's television programs depicting versions of the story as one of their episodes. It has often been used as a classic example of two ultimate comic ironies: a hostage actually liking his abductors and enjoying being captured, and his captors having the tables turned on them and being compelled to pay to be rid of him.
Summary
Two small-time criminals, Bill Driscoll and Sam Howard, kidnap a kid named Johnny, the red-haired son of Ebenezer Dorset, an important citizen, and hold him for ransom. But the moment that they arrive at their hideout with the boy, the plan begins to unravel, as the boy actually starts to enjoy his kidnappers. Calling himself "Red Chief", the boy proceeds to drive his captors to distraction with his unrelenting chatter, malicious
Influence
"The Ransom of Red Chief" has been adapted many times, directly and indirectly. Direct adaptations include the 1952 movie The Ransom of Red Chief starring Fred Allen and Oscar Levant (part of O. Henry's Full House), the segment "The Ransom of Red Chief" in the 1962 Soviet black-and-white comedy film Strictly Business by Leonid Gaidai, the 1977 "The Ransom of Red Chief" episode of the ABC Weekend Special series, the 1984 opera Ransom of Red Chief (libretto, music, and orchestration by Brad Liebl), and the 1998 television film The Ransom of Red Chief;[2] there is also Le Grand Chef, a French direct adaptation made in 1959 by Henri Verneuil, with Fernandel and Gino Cervi.[3]
Indirect adaptions include the 1929 Japanese silent comedy Straightforward Boy by Yasujirō Ozu,[4] the British film Don't Ever Leave Me (1949) played with a girl instead, with Petula Clark in the role, an episode of Rugrats titled "Ruthless Tommy" where Tommy is mistaken for the child of "Ronald Thump", the episode "The Ransom of Red Chimp" of the 1990s Disney animated series TaleSpin, the 1985 Soviet animated short Imp with a Fluffy Tail , the films Too Many Crooks (1959)[citation needed] and Ruthless People (1986) (which take the story a step further), and "The Ransom of Rusty Rex", a segment of the 2015 anthology film Tales of Halloween.[5] A 2015 episode of the radio comedy anthology Stanley Baxter's Playhouse, titled "Two Desperate Men" after how the kidnappers sign their note, relocated the story to rural Scotland in the 1930s.[6]
References
- ISBN 978-1583415856.
- IMDb
- IMDb
- ^
- Brody, Richard (24 June 2010). "Fourteen Minutes With Ozu". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- Straightforward Boy (1929) at IMDb
- ^ Wilson, Staci Layne (2 February 2015). "Ryan Schifrin: My segment is called "The Ransom of Rusty Rex". I wrote it; it's a horror riff on the classic O. Henry short story "The Ransom of Red Chief"". Dread Central. Dread Central Media LLC. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
- ^ "Stanley Baxter's Playhouse: Two Desperate Men, Series 7". BBC iPlayer. BBC. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
External links
- The Ransom of Red Chief public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Full audio dramatization is also available free from WOUB Public Media (Athens, Ohio) online here.