Hitchcock’s North by Northwest

The Manchurian Candidate

Both were men that were not believed about a crime.

I found a college exchange program student I sort of knew ain the hallway of my dorm late one night. He was absent mindedly staring out the window at the first snowfall he’d ever seen. He also only had one shoe on and thin windbreaker. I had a brief conversation with him while I was unlocking my door. When I turned back to ask him if he’d like to talk, he wasn’t there. Three days later, I overheard my friend in campus security say the guy had gone missing. I told him about the incident and thought I was just being dramatic, that I must have been drinking or high that night. (Don’t judge, it was college). The more I
insisted I wasn’t, the less he believed me.

Anyway….. I think it’s the type of situation that isn’t necessarily gender specific, but it provides mystery to a story. And a good mystery always grabs me.

However, I do agree that too often, it’s a female that writers choose to be frustrated about not being believed.

For a woman to go forth alone and investigate something, she should have a very good reason not to tell someone. I did a movie once in which my character couldn’t tell the cops she’d witnessed a murder because she was an illegal in Berlin. She also couldn’t speak any German. So she went on the run. That made sense.