filmklassik says > Once Rex Harrison announces himself as the killer, the whole movie goes to hell, with Doris Day's cavorting about on the scaffolding being a major anticlimax (She was basically out of danger from her husband at that point, as the cops were down on the street looking up and waving flashlights)
I disagree. The scaffolding scene is suspenseful because, at that point,
1. She was still in danger of falling to her death; the exact scenario her husband had planned. Had she died and not been able to tell someone her story, it would have worked in his favor. He would have said she fled in fear as he struggled with the intruder over the gun. He couldn't stop her. She was hysterical and went out the window without considering the peril of that decision.
2. We hadn't yet learned that Scotland Yard was onto her husband. Neither he nor she she knew it either. The phony phone call got them there but it only suggested he was involved. They would not have known yet to what extent and they couldn't have known his motive. He would simply have claimed he was humoring her; trying to keep her calm without dragging the police into it. He'd say he believed nothing would happen to her but he returned to make her happy.
3. There was, in fact, an intruder and, for all we knew he was dead so he couldn't have spilled the beans. It would be assumed he was the stalker. Aunt Bea had started to doubt her niece so she would have backed the husband's claims and, of course, the mistress would have supported anything he said. It would have been discovered that the intruder was the mistress' husband but that would have actually helped their case. He may not have been around much but he did live in the building. That would have been the connection and the reason he knew so much about her; information he might have gotten from his wife.
4. The fact the police were there didn't lessen her risk. Crowds, including the police, typically gather anytime someone is high on any ledge at risk of jumping or falling. That doesn't always lead to a good outcome.
Their being there helped in the sense her husband couldn't reach out and shove her as he might have liked or tried to do had no one been there to witness it but the risk was still there. The scaffolding itself is inherently dangerous; not only was it high off the ground, it was also unstable and difficult for someone who was unfamiliar with it and already in an emotional state to maneuver.
John Gavin should've scrambled up the scaffolding in the nick of time to save her, and Day could've found her spine and shoved either Rex or his mistress over the side.
5. Had the movie simply ended with Brian rescuing her, there would have been too many unresolved and messy loose ends. With the ending as it is, there's much less of that. Likewise, if Kit had suddenly been strong enough mentally to do away with her tormentors, it would have called into question her temperament and demeanor earlier in the movie. The sudden and complete shift wouldn’t make sense.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]
reply
share
filmklassik
8 years ago
Disagree on all counts. The moment the cops down below saw Doris up on the iron scaffolding, she was safe. Her husband Rex could do nothing to her at that point.
She. Was. Safe.
All she had to do was stay put. (Which, in the movie, she inexplicably refuses to do. Despite her seeing the cops down below and knowing that her husband can no longer shove her over the side with so many witnesses watching, she decides to say nothing to the cops, and instead just start traipsing around the scaffolding like a tightrope walker; ridiculous).
And as soon as the cops down below saw Doris, Rex was done for. He couldn't resort to any double-talk about coming back to make sure she was OK, etc. etc, because he had already confessed to her about embezzling the 1,000,000 pounds from his firm, and Doris would be telling this to the police.
So between the embezzled money and the dead (or wounded) intruder, Doris's story over the last seven days would be completely verified.
So once again, the better and more satisfying ending -- the ending that would've given John Gavin something genuinely heroic to do and Doris something less overwrought and panicky to do -- would have been to show Doris fleeing onto the scaffolding as she does in the movie --
-- but for there to have been NO cops down below looking up from the street -- indeed, no one at all down below looking up from the street except John Gavin -- who could then start racing toward the scaffolding to save Doris as --
-- Rex, not seeing Gavin, could go scrambling onto the scaffolding in order to shove her to her death, and --
-- he could reach her! Uh oh! And Doris could then start struggling with Rex -- fighting for her life! -- just as Gavin arrives in the nick of time and starts grappling with Rex as Doris, climbing back into the apartment through the window, is confronted by Rex's mistress.
And Doris, enraged now, could HURL herself on the woman as we cut back to --
-- Gavin, grappling with Rex -- and Gavin is losing now! Holy crap! He's underneath Rex! -- and Rex is about to shove him off the iron scaffolding when suddenly --
BLAM BLAM!
Rex suddenly stiffens, clutching his chest, and he goes sliding out of frame and tumbles off the scaffolding to the street below as we cut to --
-- Doris, at the window, holding the intruder's smoking pistol in her hand, and we see Rex's pistol-whipped mistress lying unconscious at her feet.
And we could see the police (summoned by the commotion and gunshots) converging on the building now as Gavin hauls himself in through the window and into Doris's quaking arms as the cops make their way up the stairs.
ROLL CREDITS
reply
share