The "Very Early Seventies" Ending (SPOILERS)

I enjoyed a recent re-watch of Oklahoma Crude...literally decades after I first saw it in the theater in '73. This time around, I could catch the detail of George C. Scott's hilarious underplaying of his hobo turned action hero, and his marvelous banter with Faye Dunaway in full man-hating-but -ready -to -be -met halfway mode.

The wide open hilly spaces of Oklahama were beautifully rendered on the big screen(albeit "played" by the hills near Stockton, California) and the photography was rich and handsome, and the cast was good. (Four, count 'em, FOUR Oscar winners -- and Scott and John Mills had won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in 1970), and the dialogue was pretty damn good:

Dunaway: I'll pay you for an honest day's work. That includes domestic chores.
Scott: Spell that out.
Dunaway: Doing dishes.
Scott: What?!

There's also Jack Palance -- he of the flat iron face and weirdly whispery voice -- trying to threaten the tough Dunaway into signing over her oil well (for minimum price):

Dunaway writes "something" on the contract, and you can tell its two words:

Palance: Is that to me, personally?
Dunaway: (On verge of tears) No...its to EVERYBODY.
Palance; Isn't this always the case with a woman. You want to be treated like a regular guy...and then you start crying.

Whereupon, Palance treats Dunaway as a "regular guy" by having his thugs beat her into unconsciousness.

Palance's villainy is intense here, and later, he leads his men in killing Dunaway's father(John Mills.)

Everything is set up for a rousing finale in which Dunaway gets to keep her well and defeats Palance's gang -- likely with George C. Scott doing the honors of killing Palance.

And yet...that's not the ending at all.

A gusher DOES come in -- everybody gets coated in black liquid ala James Dean in Giant -- but its a one-shot failure.

Scott picks up a big board and approaches Palance to hit him with it - and Palance just bats Scott away into the mud.

Some thrilling conclusion.

But it was 1973, and a LOT of movies in the early 70's ended in failure for the heroes. Oklahoma Crude star Faye Dunaway was just about to make another BIG one, in Chinatown(1974.) "The bad guys win" was perhaps an "honest and realistic" way to end a movie, but not a very satisfying one.

Dunaway was once asked why, with Scott as her co-star and all the brawling action, Oklahoma Crude wasn't a bigger hit. Dunaway quietly replied, "I really don't know. I just didn't work. We don't know why."

Oh...there was a reason....

PS. I think my favorite line in this is after Scott's been working with the man-hating Dunaway for awhile, and he just says, matter-of-factly: "You know, I think I've just about had it with all this man stuff..."