I saw this movie a long time ago and I do think that at the end General Scott went home and blew his brains out with a pistol. I may have imagined that because I just recently saw it on TCM and that did not happen. So do anyone else remember what I remember or am I crazy because it didn't happen.
shareI can't testify as to your sanity or lack thereof--I've misremembered more than movies in my time; but no, that never happened.
"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde
It's been ages since I read it, but you might have the movie ending crossed with the book.
shareIn the book, Scott didn't kill himself. Scott resigned on Friday at 8 PM. Saturday at 1 PM, at his home in Fort Meyer, he, Riley, and Dieffenbach watched the president's speech on TV. They made a bet about who would replace Scott, and Scott won.
shareInteresting, and a bit weird. Seems it would give the a somewhat light-hearted twist to the climax of a very serious story. Can you elaborate on the bet?
Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers! But if you could show us something in a nice possum...
It basically came down to the fact that after the President forced Scott's resignation, THEN you had the Secretary of the Treasury in effect blackmailing Scott into staying out of politics forever. In the novel, Scott had an affair not with the Eleanor Holbrook character but a *friend* of Eleanor Holbrook (who is a former mistress of Jiggs Casey who in the novel is married) and managed to get an improper tax break for his then-mistress. Lyman refused to use that impropriety of the affair and tax break against Scott but after Scott resigned, the Treasury Secretary Dodd did, "You are not going to run for President two years from now, treaty or no treaty, or else I'll run this whole thing in the papers." Scott by this point was a man resigned to his fate.
OTOH, the character of Senator Prentice, it seems was away at a mountain resort with no telephone and was totally unaware of the fact that the plot had been outed and was on his way to take part in the implementation when *Prentice* ran his car off the road and was killed. The original draft of the screenplay that was shot was transferring Prentice's death to Scott but then Frankenheimer scrapped that and had it reshot to just show Scott resignedly asking to be driven home. This new ending was actually shot during the production of "The Train" in France and Frankenheimer I remember mentioned having to conceal French signs in order to get the shot.
Regarding the "bet", Dieffenbach predicted that General Rutkowski the NORAD commander who was not part of the plot would be the next JCS chairman, whereas Scott predicted it would be Admiral Palmer, the one members of the Joint Chiefs who was not part of the plot. Scott was right (Rutkowski was promoted to Air Force Chief of Staff).
Scott could simply have toughed it out.
sharemaybe youre thinking of Dr Strangelove
same year
had an actor named scott
and a general who blows his brains out
I watched the film on DVD with the Director's commentary and apparently they originally planned (or even filmed, I wasn't sure) to have Scott die in a car accident after giving up the coup. As I understood it they were going to leave it ambiguious whether it was an accident or a suicide.
shareYou're right. In all of the research I've done on this film, including watching the director's commentary, there was no explanation of what happened to Scott at the end other that he asked the driver to take him home.
shareDoes anyone else remember about 20 years ago when Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Boorda killed himself after being publicly accused of wearing ribbons he didn't earn? He walked out into his yard and shot himself in the chest with a pistol.
I was half-expecting Scott to do that at the end of the film.
I do recall that, actually, although enough years have gone by that the particulars were a bit fuzzy until I looked it up just a moment ago.
share