Games: Two on a Match

Early in the murky ravelings of the current movie Last Year at Marienbad (TIME, March 16) comes a scene in which the cadaverous "X" invites the importunate "M" to play a little game of matchsticks. With insouciant deliberation "X" lays out 16 matches in four rows on a table top—seven in the top row, five in the next, three next and one alone. He explains that they will take turns picking up the matches; each may take as few or as many as he wishes (even a whole row), but all must be taken from the same row. The player...

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