At the end when Tony and April are together with the poster of Kitty behind them, although Tony says that they'll all be together in Wisconsin, I felt like the poster was symbolizing that Kitty's spirit will be with them because her pose in the poster was similar to the Virgin Mary statue (and people pray to Mary for protection, etc).
Despite seeing the movie multiple times (four, to be exact) on the Silver Screen, I didn't catch the similarity you mention. I
did think that Kitty's arms-raised-upward pose in that poster (and the way the camera lingered on it) was angelic.
One thing I saw for sure, (I mention it here because I don't know how well it shows up on the DVD, [anyone?]) was that the bottle of pills that Kitty took bore a printed label that said "poison." There was also handwriting in the middle of the label that said, "no more than
one pill" was to be taken. Between the half-dozen or so pills Kitty dumps in, and the fact that we are presented with a glass that is absolutely
coated with the residue of the pills when Kitty puts the now-empty drinking vessel down, I'm 99% sure that the dose Kitty took was a fatal one.
Couple that with the soft-focus Mamoulian puts her in when her head lolls off the couch and it seems pretty certain that Kitty didn't make it (though God knows I wanted her to).
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ozzieink
12 years ago
I agree. Just finished watching the film and there's no doubt Kitty died. I think it's just wishful thinking that sees this as an ambiguous ending.
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