The ending does leave much to be desired particularly due to the long drawn out explanation of Johnnie. I would say though that this does not hinder the previous 90 minutes of the story and in some ways leaves us with an ambiguous ending as Johnnie drives off with his arm around Lina. Could he be lying? What will be Lina's fate?
Anyway, I do not think the ending is as bad as people have made it out to be. What are your thoughts on it?
Cheers
Inferior Hitchcock--"Stage Fright" which is often dismissed, is far better! This is so similar to "Rebecca" certainly in terms of Fontaine's character and performance, it's hard to believe she won the Oscar.
Nothing seems quite right with the film, which is considerably cleaned up from the source novel. The ending is just one more bad moment in a not-so-good-at-all movie.
I think the ending is chilling and in keeping with Johnnie's modus operandi throughout the entire movie. He was an adroit liar and this was his final lie to her. She loved him and wanted to believe him. The turning around of the car sealed her fate.
shareYou are absolutely right. 'He was an adroit liar' as you say - I'm not sure how anyone posting here can buy this story that he is suddenly a 'changed man.' Time and again he lied his way through the entire film. You are going to believe him now? Why?
At the climax, why was he driving so fast and dangerously on that mountain road, knowing the passenger-side door was broken and prone to opening? Then, he increased his speed to over 60 m.p.h. AND takes the 'shortcut' - which is an even more dangerous road! How can this behavior be excused? Even if he wasn't trying to push her out (which to me it certainly appeared he was), there is no justification for his unbelievably reckless driving up to that point.
From the beginning, when he used her to help pay for his train fare, that's all she was to him - someone to be used (just like apparently everyone else he ever came across). Hitch spent a lot of time on that 'glowing milk' scene. No doubt that intended to indicate the drink contained poison. We are left 'not knowing' because she never drank it...but I agree with you, the car turning around did indeed seal her fate. One way or another, it was only a matter of time before she was gone. Heck you can even speculate that Johnnie had something to do with his father-in-law's death, to speed up her inheritance. He knew about it before she did - they never explained how.
The ending was such a copout. He was so obviously guilty. One of Hitch's rare failures.
sharejsk's negative take on the ending is just too much and can't be accepted as sustainable.
For example the notion that Johnny might have killed Lina's father is absurd. You can't say because they did not spell out how Johnny knew about the death means he did it. There is simply no indication that he did, not even a "suspicion".
More generally it is over the top to suggest Johnny was in effect a congenital, compulsive liar. He was rather someone who lied with purpose, and did so very well. That does not mean he never told the truth or was incapable of doing so. It is therefore quite possible for Lina to have known the difference.
After all no one need say the ending requires us to think Johnny is a "changed man." In fact as I posted over a year ago on this thread the expectation is that Lina and Johnny will have a rocky road ahead of them, because he won't be all that different. But... at least Lina knows the explanation for all the talk about poison and killing, and that her suspicion of Johnny's role in Binky's death is never substantiated. In short he is not a changed man, merely one who Lina finds she was wrongly suspicious of being a murderer intent on killing her as well.
It is similarly over the top to suggest that because he began by getting Lina to help him pay his train ticket meant that that's all she was to him. I mean really... We are to ignore the rest of the film? At a bare minimum he clearly thought Lina was very attractive.
The driving scene was quite plausible. First of all my wife sometimes complains that I am driving too fast. I can assure you when that happens it is not because I am trying to kill her. Heh. Johnny and Lina had been arguing about her going home to her mother, which clearly upset him very much. So he was speeding. And jsk says this has "no justification" and is "unbelievably reckless". These are quite simply overreactions.
OF COURSE the ending was a plot pivot. But it was not implausible.
"jsk's negative take on the ending is just too much and can't be accepted as sustainable."
No, it's YOUR opinion that is dismissed. Go sit in a corner.
I didn't find the ending really ambiguous. There was a brief wonder as the car edged towards the cliff. But when the car turned round back up the road, I just took it that Johnnie had suddenly changed his mind as Lina had just been begging him to.
shareI also did not find the ending ambiguous. The film up until that point was somewhat ambiguous about Johnny's character, in fact suggesting at times he was not only a liar but may well have also been a murderer. But the ending comes down on the other side, and instead leaves him as a man who cannot handle money, but who did love Lina all along.
Much is made of the apparent controversy involving what is called a tacked on ending compared to the book, the ending that is in the film as we find it. But putting aside whatever politics was going on between Hitchcock and the producers, we are left with the film as we find it. THis is not the first time a film differs from the book it was adapted from.
Up until the end the film was ambiguous enough that the ending we see is quite plausible. For example Lina earlier feared that Johnny was going to kill Beaky during their visit to the site. Her suspicions there were discovered to be unfounded. Lina also was convinced Johnny was hell bent on pursing hte land deal to get Beaky's money. But Johnny then pulled the plug on the deal.
Then we felt he might have only done that to, in takng the trip to Paris, kill Beaky before Beaky could reverse the funding of the corporation. But in fact we have no real evidence that Johnny went to Paris with Beaky, let alone killed him. Only a "suspicion".
(I remain convinced that the critical issue here is whether Johnny's story about having gone to Liverpool instead of Paris can be sustained. Since he could not be in two places at once, and if in fact went to Paris cannot assume that evidence of same would never turn up, even a gambler like Johnny would not have played taht line about Liverpool if it was not true - it would be too easy to have that alibi taken away from him if it was not true. Hence I think we can assume it was.)
I can add it is also quite plausible that Johnny would have changed his mind about committing suicide. He had been feeling that Lina was becoming quite distant, talking about going home to her mother, and that would have fed into his suicidal thinking. But by the end Lina did not go, and also quite clearly wanted Johnny, and to have him stay with her. In short Johnny knew at the end that Lina loved him, and so on that basis his suicidal thinking had to change.
OF COURSE this couple will still have a rocky road. Hard to see how they straighten out the money issues. But they will stay together, and that is plausible.
"THis is not the first time a film differs from the book it was adapted from."
And????? Way to miss the point.
"Up until the end the film was ambiguous enough that the ending we see is quite plausible."
No. Not in any way whatsoever.
Yes, it does ruin the movie, it basically makes the entire movie pointless, especially since the resolution is that they live happily ever after. If he's really innocent, then both of them are lunatics!
shareI don't get how people say it's an open ending. It should have been more ambiguous. But that wasn't common at the time. It was happy ending or nothing.
share