MovieChat Forums > The Cincinnati Kid (1965) Discussion > The Ending

The Ending

posted 16 years ago by SpoR-One
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So damned funny, Black kid taking a beating from McQueen all movie then he totally rubs it in his face, What was the exact quote? I don't get why his GF comes over to hug him though. Wtf?

I think the overall message of the movies was good and the ending wouldn't have been bad if it were executed properly.

Basically, The Kid is a hypocrite, tells Shooter that he's horrible for cheating, he cheats with guy's wife, then on a 37million-1 loses vs a donkey, and gets what he deserves. Sounds good on paper right?

Like I said the execution is horrible. Shooter's cheating/bimbo wife is teased/deflected at first the she just gets into his hotel room and into his bed (lol?) and he's like ok we'll knock boots. Then his hillbilly GF randomly shows up. He beats the game legit with no cheating, then loses on a horrible beat. Then he goes outside loses to the hilarious black kid, then his hillbilly GF comes back to him. Also Slade who is a pretty major villain in the movie is not punished except that he lost money on the Kid. Is he gonna kill/beat shooter and the kid? So many loose ends and/or lack of character/plot development in the movie.

I thought the movie was pretty ok and the ending would have been perfectly fine had it not been for the execution.

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[–] Picasner 14 years ago

I think you might be reading too much into this. It's really kind of simplistic:
1) Shooter is the Kid's friend and won't sleep with his wife when he had the chance during & after the cockfight because Shooter is known to be upright.
2) When he discovered that Shooter was cheating, all bets were off. If he won because Shooter dealt him winners, eventually it would come out and he would have been ridiculed for winning that way. So he then slept with Melba to get back at Shoooter for putting him in that position.
3) The black kid idolizes the Kid and when he finally wins, he just quotes the Kid. There is no idication that the black knew the Kid had lost the big game.
4) Originally, that final scene when the GF comes back, wasn't in the movie and I thought that was a better ending. BTW, in the book, he does get back with his girl.
5) Slade was trying to get back at Yancey because he lost $6,000 to him in a game. Now he's talking about giving Shooter $25,000 and forgiving a $12,000 debt. I would assume he expected to make that up and more by betting on the kid. I suspect that means he probably lost about $100,000 betting on the game. I think that's a pretty substanial punishment.

So, Shooter's now a cheater, Melba's a slut, Slade's a loser and the Kid got punished for not maintaining high moral standards. Christian will probably be a dorrmat all of her life.