Well, the situation’s messy—
It is quite a fix he’s[1] in.
His wife croons saccharine music
That sounds like a Doris din.
There is something he discovered
From a guy[2] who wasn’t Dutch.
The guy dies after their meeting;
Ben’s the man who knows too much.

He’s the man who says, “Damn!
I sure wish that I didn’t know
What that man told me. Damn!
But to London I gotta go.”

If he had his choice in the matter,
He would not have gone to Af-
frica to have heard that chatter.
This is no matter for laughs.
There’s a kid,[3] and Jo’s[4] his mother;
He’s the killers’ kidnapee.
For Ben, no choice but involvement
In all the chicanery.

He’s the man who says, “Damn!
I sure wish that I didn’t know
What that man told me.” And
He lands in London for a show.

Gotta find his son, who’s kidnapped. . .
First I should say what Ben’s known:
There’s a ruler of a kingdom;
Off his head’s planned to be blown
At a concert when the boomin’
Cymbals will drown the gun’s tone.
But then there is a problem:
The gun misses. . .thank Jo’s drone.

Then the man with the gat
In the balcony hits the floor
And the plan of the rats
Is unraveled; the kid’s restored.


PS.
And a man in “Steps,” damned
In a theater, gets bumped before
He can blab; the slugs slam
Him and Hannay settles the score.

And a man jumps and yam-
mers, “Fire!” in theater. . .panic’s born.
Then the man escapes and
There’s a damn pun: the curtain’s torn.


[1]Dr. Benjamin McKenna, as played by James Stewart
[2]Louis Bernard, as played by Daniel Gélin. In Morocco, a dying Bernard tells McKenna about a plot to assassinate the leader of a country. The perpetrators discover this and kidnap his son to keep him from spilling the beans.
[3]Hank McKenna, as played by Christopher Olsen
[4]Josephine McKenna, as played by Doris Day, who thwarts the assassination by screaming just as the assassin attempts to shoot the leader during a cymbal crash at a concert. In “Torn Curtain,” Paul Newman yells “fire” as the East German Stasi are about to apprehend him in a theater. In “39 Steps,” “Mr. Memory” is shot in a theater, but the killer is apprehended. In “Stage Fright,” the murderer is killed as the safety curtain falls onto him. In “Sabotage,” the terrorist bomber is a theater owner who accidentally blows up his theater after a chase scene inside the building. The bird motif is present in "The Man" in the form of three taxidermists, Mayne L., Frank A., and John B.