Bad Endings

It’s a Wonderful Life

My major problem involves Mary. I can reluctantly accept, in the spirit of Christmas, all the other uplifting revelations that Clarence offers to George. But making Mary a spinster librarian was too much for me. Are we really to believe that, without George in the world, love would never have stirred in Mary — a beautiful, healthy, warm-hearted woman like her? For those who can’t take the high sugar content of a Frank Capra movie, I offer you this alternate ending: Clarence reluctantly gives George Mary’s address. What George finds is a married woman with four children. The scene could take place on the porch of her home. In response to his uncomprehending hysteria (“But you’re my wife, Mary! I need you, Mary! Help me, Mary!”), the alarmed woman calls for her husband. A burly fellow comes out, punches George in the nose and slams the door. George picks himself up from the snow and trudges back to the bridge. When Clarence looks up to the sky and asks if he should again intercede, the Heavenly Voice says “No. Someone so deluded doesn’t belong in this world.” George climbs over the railing and disappears in the dark, swirling waters. Clarence never gets his wings. 

The Bad Seed

In William March’s novel, which he completed shortly before his death, he created the original Evil Child. At its close Rhoda Penmark survives, just as elemental evil survives. The stage play retained the authenticity of the book, but when a film version was proposed the Production Code (commonly known as the Hays Code) was overseeing our morals. Billy Wilder, who was originally interested in directing it, backed out when approval was refused for a script in which Rhoda goes unpunished, to continue on her deadly way. Still, the movie was made, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The approved version ends with Rhoda being struck dead by a bolt of lightning (divine intervention, I suppose, forever protecting the world from evil). Worse, after the credits roll we’re treated to a comic scene in which the mother has Rhoda over her lap, delivering a good spanking to the squalling brat. The audience could leave chuckling at that. In time Rhoda became tame stuff compared to the gore that post-Hays Code kids could generate. And, of course, today we’ve been so inured to gore (and sex and obscenity) that the bar is constantly being raised. What’s my point? We can find fault with the Code, as in the case of “The Bad Seed,” but we can also question the wisdom of opening wide a Pandora’s Box. Because, it seems, evil didn’t get destroyed by a stroke of lightning. It’s continually being paraded before our jaded senses.

Pulp Fiction

So what’s in the briefcase, Quentin? I happen to know, and it doesn’t involve anything existential. For example, it isn’t the Soul or the Holy Grail — I’ve heard those proposed, and it shows the lengths people will go to justify their enjoyment of cheap sadomasochism. I sat through it all because a friend told me that I shouldn’t — absolutely should not —  miss the ending. The problem was, the ending wouldn’t end. The killer/drug dealer/philosopher/prophet kept carrying on and on and on, when all I wanted was for the damn briefcase to be opened. Like in that Robert Aldrich movie, “Kiss Me Deadly,” where there was an ominous leather case; at the end Mike Hammer opened it and we found that it contained Destruction (this at a time when the USA and USSR were facing off with their nuclear weapons). That movie played fair, but in “Pulp”we got snookered. I made a phone call to this friend when I got home and asked her what was in the briefcase. She told me that was the beauty of it — that it would remain forever a mystery — the mystery at the heart of Life — get it? Though I refrained from expressing my opinion, I will now. It was no mystery to me what was in the briefcase: it was as empty as Tarantino’s head (and hers).

The Lost Weekend

After a series of harrowing events, the film ends with the former alcoholic sitting down at a typewriter (after a kiss and a word of encouragement from his girlfriend) and beginning to write the book that will be The Lost Weekend. The scene looks awkwardly tacked on, as false endings are wont to do; they don’t grow naturally out of what came before. In “Ace in the Hole” and “Sunset Boulevard” Billy Wilder had the guts to take his characters and situations to their valid — and grim — conclusions. Has Don Birnam been cured by his nightmare weekend? I read Charles Jackson’s novel after I saw the movie, and it closes with Don hiding bottles all over his apartment; never again would he get caught short. He will continue to lie to his girlfriend until she abandons him; that’s what alcoholics do: they lie. Don’s problems, in both the novel and the film, are too deep for any easy cure. Why did Billy Wilder cop out? He had read the book; his writing partner, Charles Brackett, was an alcoholic — there was no shortage of them in Hollywood. Wilder knew the truth. Maybe he had already overcome too many hurtles in making the film. There was pressure on Paramount from temperance groups and the liquor industry. He was making a picture that, at the time, was about a taboo subject; the Hays Code people were breathing down his neck. He may have thought he had presented a strong enough dose of reality and that he had better ease off. Give the public an upbeat, simplistic ending. Lie to them. 

The Ox Bow Incident

A good film — and one faithful to Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s novel — until the end. It’s about a lynching in the old West: a posse made up of townsfolk capture, judge, find guilty and hang three men accused of murder and wrestling cattle. Not everyone is in favor of this vigilante “justice”; some strongly argue that the men be returned to town and tried. But Wrong prevails over Right. This is a morality tale, and the message is clearly laid out in the events that take place. It’s found out later that the men were innocent, and the perpetrators of the lynching must face their consciences (those that have any). One of the accused men, Martin, knowing he was about to die, had written a letter to his wife. The man to whom he entrusts it describes it as “beautiful”; he mentions that Martin had told his wife of the things they had done together. And that’s it. There’s no more in the novel about the letter’s contents. However, in the film it becomes a sermon. In a saloon, with some of the guilty present, the script manipulates events so that Gil reads a letter aloud. This letter is long, and is almost all about the injustice that had occurred (Martin’s only words directly to his wife are in closing: “kiss the babies for me and God bless you”). As Gil (Henry Fonda at his most solemn) reads on and on about matters of morality, about mob rule, about the “very conscience of man,” my mood grew more and more sour. Clearly the makers of the movie had a Message to deliver. But I don’t want a lecture on Right and Wrong — especially when I’m being hit over the head with it by contrived means. The Martin in the book had written the letter his wife needed to have.

American Beauty

If I do a follow-up piece called “Bad Beginnings,” Sam Mendes’ film will again appear (for its scene of a man masturbating in the shower). But this essay is about endings, and though the ending for Lester Burnham is when his brains are blown out, I have to back up and set the scene. The shooter is Lester’s neighbor, Colonel Frank Fitts, USMC; in the house at the time is Angela Hayes, a promiscuous high school student (who Lester has been lusting after in rose-strewn fantasies of breathtaking beauty). But things are not what they seem. I described Angela as “promiscuous.” She sure had me fooled, with her knowing, in-your-face sexuality (this act apparently fooled the whole school for years). But as she is about to be ravished by Lester, it is revealed that she’s actually a deeply vulnerable and insecure virgin. Lester tenderly declines to deflower her. As for the Marine, Frank comes out of a liberal’s wet dream: a brutal tyrant and homophobe. He sees his son performing fellatio on Lester (which, actually, never happened; Frank’s view of the event is strategically blocked). When he comes over to Lester’s house and impulsively kisses him — the homophobe is actually a homosexual! — I wasn’t surprised. We all know that these macho military types are hiding something. Lester kindly forgives him for the mistake. Demented Frank returns with his revolver and brain matter flies. Lastly, we see the reactions of various characters, and it’s implied that Lester has actually died a happy man — because in the course of the film he had found freedom. You’re probably wondering why I used the word “actually” four times. It’s because all the elements of this ending — this movie — come out of a grab bag labeled Phony Movie Tricks. You can buy one at any good novelty store, along with Austin Powers Teeth. You’ll look shagadelic, baby.

The Magnificent Ambersons

The sight of the grinning couple striding toward the camera, accompanied by a swell of exultant music, has the power to make me cringe. Yet in a sense this ending is perfectly fitting. Welles never shot the scene; it was inserted by others. It’s the final betrayal of the film that Orson Welles actually made — a version that is lost to us. Fifty minutes were chopped off (Welles said that the editing had been done with a lawnmower). He would have shortened it; a crucial part of the making of a film is the editing process, but it was done by hacks. The ostensible reason for their actions was that the preview audience reacted with disapproval to a movie so long, complex and depressing. We were in a war; people wanted to see Astaire and Rogers dancing in ballrooms. Welles was in the wilds of Brazil when the editing crime took place (the original footage he shot was disposed of, probably thrown in a river at night, weighed down by concrete blocks). Despite everything, enough of the film survives for it to retain a grandeur; many scenes are masterful (such as the long closeup of the once proud, imperious, selfish, cruel young man who caused so much suffering, and the voice-over narrator —  Welles himself — announcing that, as the townsfolk had long hoped for, George Amberson Minafer had finally gotten his comeuppance). Yes, the film is still worth seeing; Welles has stated that he felt better about “Ambersons” than he did about “Citizen Kane.” As for that comical soap opera ending, it’s a mean joke — and it’s directed at Orson Welles. You sure got your comeuppance, Mr. Genius! Ha ha ha.

The Asphalt Jungle

It's a downright shame that John Huston, a horseman, came up with an ending that violates the authenticity of the rest of his film. For it’s authenticity — in setting, motivations, actions — that make “Jungle” a noir classic. On one level it’s about a jewel heist, but it presents us with psychological studies of at least ten characters (even the minor ones come across with force). The film followed W. R. Burnett’s novel faithfully — until the end. Burnett’s ending was not cinematic, so I can understand why Huston had to go in a different direction. But what he came up with was regrettable. He has the dying Dix driving to the beloved horse ranch of his youth, getting out of the car, opening the gate, staggering into the field, falling to the ground. Three horses amble toward him and seem to be nuzzling his body. Is this supposed to be touching? All I could think of was . . . carrots. Because I know that horses who saw a strange man staggering into their field would avoid him — that’s their natural response. Huston must have had some trainers acclimate the horses to the situation, so that they came to understand that they’d find some treat at the body of the fallen man. Probably carrots. Maybe people who don’t know horses wouldn’t perceive this. But, as I noted, Huston did know horses, so he knew he was foisting something phoney on his audience. And, given how unflinchingly true everything else was, “phoney” is a very harsh word. Does it ruin the film? No, this is not like in gymnastics, where you have to nail the landing or have a judge deduct major points. Huston stumbled, but I’m only dropping one half point. Instead of a top 5, it gets a 4.5.

Wild River

Elia Kazan manages to mar what is a truly wonderful film. How he could make such an error in judgement is beyond me — he had done so much right. But the final image — it can’t take more than one minute — shows a small plane flying over a huge TVA dam; in the plane are Chuck, Carol (the woman he recently married), and her two children. The camera zooms in on the dam, which becomes enclosed in a circle. And that chintzy image ends the film. As if the damn dam were important! As if we should be celebrating Progress! OK, in this case the dam is important and progress is necessary, but it’s not at the core of the story, which is about three people, all of whom I believed in and cared about. It’s a love story, it’s a tragedy (the latter involves old Ella Garth). What the right ending is I can’t say, but I sure know a wrong one when I see it. Again, the queston arises: Does it ruin the film? No. “Mar” is the right word, but to mar the end is sad. I felt so deeply about Chuck  and Carol and her two children that I wrote an essay on the film — simply titled “Lee Remick.” She isn’t the only actor to cite; everyone is excellent. But there’s a scene — a truly exhilarating scene — where Remick pulls out all the stops in her effort to make Chuck understand that he loves and needs her. This unknown work deserves to be valued. Read that essay I wrote; maybe it will prompt you to find the film. Excellence is rare, and it should not go unappreciated. Don’t you believe that’s true?