*Spoilers*
I read somewhere that the ending, in which Al Roberts is arrested by the police, was added by the order of censors, who were concerned about the moral message of the movie. In the original ending, Roberts gets away with murder.
Does any one have any information to confirm this?
Yes, that is indeed correct. I recently watched this picture in a recent class of mine and commented that the ending seemed rather "tagged on" to my tutor. He explained that it was added simply because it would've been seen as outrageous back in the 40s if a film gave away the idea that it was acceptable to commit an act of murder and get away with it.
shareYou are 100% correct, Duke. From about 1934 to until the 1960s the movie production companies had to adhere to a stick code of ethics in cinema. One of the major things was that a muderer HAD to be punished. You couldn't show a criminal who had "compensating moral values" and allow him to walk. That's why the ending is cheesy...but hey, what do you expect with a classic 'B' Noir film like this? ;)
shareIn the middle of an essay on Noir...about the ending being changed because of the production code, don't suppose anyone can name a book or educational web site that confirms this? Not doubting anyone! Just need to cite a reference other than chat boards!
quick replies needed...due date approaching!
ta
Dunno, I read it was shot and packed up in 6 days so I wouldnt have thought they'd have had time to film another ending, also they surely would have known they couldnt get away with that and probably wouldn't have bothered.
This is just my opinion so if it is true they tacked the ending on I've no problem with being wrong.
If you look at some of the screwball comedies (Cary Grant et al) you see how they got round the issue of non-marital sex at the end of the films with rather surreal dialogue and set pieces as not to break the Hays code but to just bend it a little.
Love Detour by the way, got to be in my all-time top 10.
What about Arsenic and Old Lace? Didn't the aunts get away with murder?
Edward G. Robinson, in Scarlett Street, albeit, he went crazy with guilt, but another man went to the electric chair.
I think they were committed to an asylum in the end, which is "just".
shareDon't forget "Nightmare" with Edward G. Robinson and Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy gets away with it, too. If they would have arrested him, I doubt he could have made it believable that he was acting under the influence of hypnosis.
shareNo they were committed to an insane which was acceptable as they were crazy.
shareYour due day is probably long past, but.....
Martin Goldsmith (the writer of the screenplay and novel) is interviewed in a documentary made for PBS called American Cinema, in which talks about how the Production Code office wouldn't pass the movie, so he had to tag on the ending.
As for Arsenic and Old Lace, the aunts don't actually "get away with it" because they are sent off to the funny farm with Teddy at the end.
I think it's stunning. A nice break from the usually most annoying part about many otherwise good movies. Though guess it's documented that the director said they had to change it, they could not not have known about it. Thus it's unclear if he killed anyone: the girl makes premonitions of her coming untimely end, and maybe died of some disease like TB. so we don't know if he killed anyone and we don't even know if he got arrested.
shareOf the scenes I saw re. the two deaths in the film, Al Roberts committed no murders anyway: Both Vera & Charles' deaths were accidental, at least from what I saw on celluloid. If what we were seeing on film was a mere mental "wish list" on Al's part to make him justify to himself that he had better morals than the decedents and wouldn't stoop so low as to murder someone, and yet he in actuality really "did" commit those murders, then that is another matter entirely!
shareYes, that is indeed correct. I recently watched this picture in a recent class of mine and commented that the ending seemed rather "tagged on" to my tutor. He explained that it was added simply because it would've been seen as outrageous back in the 40s if a film gave away the idea that it was acceptable to commit an act of murder and get away with it.
When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...share
re: arsenic and old lace- end cleaned up also- at the end of the play produced on broadway [before censored movie,which I love anyway] the aunts are left alone with head of happydale and about to poison him with elderberry wine which he grabs eagerly and starts to drink. It says curtain falls before he dies as last stage direction.
shareHe just wanders around for the rest of his life wracked by guilt and his over-developed sense of fate. I guess he's wearing the same clothes, but really what's to say that the cop car that picks him up isn't five, ten, twenty years in the future? No matter, it was clear to me that the ending was tacked on and his real "punishment" was in his head.
What was it? A piece of paper crawling with germs, couldn't buy anything I wanted.
But you need to watch the movie again everyone. He didn't actually comit any of the two murders nor were the deaths his fault at all.
shareExactly. How come the other commentators missed that point? If he was arrested for the murder or murders, it just seems to show what a terribly black cloud this guy was under.
shareIMHO, I actually think that he murdered both of them. He is mad and the story is told from his POV. *Spoiler* - For example, that he accidentally strangled Vera when he tried to break the phone cord.
Is it anyone else that think that this movie has been a huge influence on David Lynch "Lost Highway?
"I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on." - Oscar Levant
That's an interesting viewpoint, even though I don't think that was the original intent of the director. But it's a clever idea. In any case, the ending does seem like an afterthought. But it is also true that if the movie is to be taken at face value, he did not murder anyone.
Ya never know what ya don't know, ya know?
Naragoth - When I watched this movie, I thought of Lost Highway as well!
shareSpoiler City -
Netflix recommended this to me because I'm into Raymond Chandler. So, I watched this movie for the first time today, and I swear I had seen it before when Vera showed the headline that said Haskell was in line to collect a large fortune from his dying father and tried to convince Roberts to pose as Haskell to collect.
But, I could have sworn the ending I saw before, many years ago, had the police waiting to arrest Roberts, explaining that (SPOILER FOR AN OLD ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS EPISODE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT) the man Roberts "killed" was not really Haskell, but an identity thief who robbed Haskell of his ID and was posing as Haskell to claim the father's inheritance. The note about being a bible salesman to scam the father was the dead con man's doing, not Haskell's. When Roberts denied this could be true, a man we have never seen stepped forward and claimed to be the real Haskell, who organized the story about the inheritance to lure the con man to Los Angeles. Can anyone tell me, was this an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode that I remember from my early childhood or something else entirely?
"Enough of that technical talk, Foo!"
I didn't see that anyone had responded. Could it be this one?
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 1, Episode 9
The Long Shot (27 Nov. 1955)
From IMDb:
Down on his luck and heavily in debt, Charlie Raymond reads a newspaper advertisement asking for a native Londoner who is willing to accompany a British visitor on a trip from New York to San Francisco. He meets with Hendricks, the man who placed the ad, who agrees to hire him for the trip. As they drive across the country, Hendricks talks and incessantly asks questions about London, as Charlie grows increasingly bored. Charlie is just about to run off and leave Hendricks on his own, when he discovers his employer's reason for going to San Francisco, and sees an opportunity for himself.
YouTube has it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4GRI-dj5es
Forgive me if this has been responded to already or if you found your answer. My recollection is about the faked identity of a person leading the other into a bad situation. I remember it stars Hitchcock favorite John Williams, the very dapper English gentleman who appeared in a number of "Hitchworks".
(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC
Whether tagged on or not, the ending is much more vague than you guys would have it to be.
The cops don't exactly jump out of the car and handcuff him, instead one policeman steps out of the car and almost politely guides Tom Neal to the car. Which IMHO means he isn't being arrested for murder, just for loitering!
Vagabonds were then often picked up by the police and given a cell for the night.
Thomas
That's right, Thomas, all we know is that he's picked up by the cops, not that he's convicted of murder. The point is the irony: the thing he feared so much (getting arrested) is exactly what happened--as a result of his trying to avoid it!!
shareVera died by strangulation by the telephone cord, and Haskell probably hit his head or died from a heart attack. He would probably get life for both.A case of bad luck.
The Divine Genealogy Goddess
Superficially, you're correct. But, if you look at his appearance and behavior at the diner, he's just asking to be picked up by the police. He looks like hell, gets belligerent with the truck driver, and flips out when the juke box is played. If you're so afraid of getting caught by the police, you just don't act that way (and you don't pick up hitch hikers either) - unless you're nuts. So maybe that's the problem - he's nuts and the whole story is his self-delusional depiction of the murders he actually committed.
Who knows? That's why there are so many threads about this movie here...
I'm going with 'Thomas' on this one. He didn't murder anyone, both deaths were accidents. I think the police car just picked him up to get him off the freeway, not to place him under arrest. Remember, the police were looking for Haskell, not him (although if the production code people complained, I suppose the director could say that he was arrested).
shareJust finished watching this and I agree with the theory the police where just getting him off the highway.
shareWhen the cops pull up, the cop is sitting in the front. When the cop puts Al in the car, he gets in the back with him. Looks like the cop wanted to keep an eye on Al. If he just wanted to get Al off the highway, he would have went back to the front seat.
George Carlin: It's all bullsh-t and it's bad for ya.
The police loading him into the car are highway patrolmen, not city cops or homicide detectives. They're not treating him in the same way that they would if they'd just nabbed a guy who's being accused of two homicides. I agree with the poster who said this scene was tacked on to satisfy the Hays Code and that it's possible to infer that the patrolmen don't believe him to be anything more than just another vagrant who made a scene at the diner.
share[deleted]
Anyone else see this film lately and have any thoughts on the ending? I thought it was definitely ambiguous and abrupt. But then, I love that I'm still thinking about it, that it's still keeping me guessing.
I get that it was tacked on to appease the Moral Code of the time. But if they were looking for Haskell, then we're not seeing him being arrested for the murders. So how did he meet his end? If arrested just for loitering, are we nevertheless supposed to think he ended up in jail, one way or another?
Richie PEARLS SERIES author
I believe if he keeps his mouth shut, he will spend the night in jail for vagrancy and then let out at the county line the next day. However, he sure looks and sounds like he is ready to spill the beans and that's why you have no trouble believing that he will confess after the landlady says yea...That's him. He checked in with her. From there, he will tell the whole story. My take? He is going down for two murders, that he planned and got caught for. Of course we know different...yes?
I will trust the confirming posts. It does weaken the movie in my opinion. It also reminds me of the prologue and epilogue spliced on to Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1956) so that the movie doesn't end on the hopeless but solid note of "They're here already! You're next! You're next, You're next...! " but with the cliche that the "authorities will act in time" and defeat the invader like all the other seemingly countless SF B pictures of the era.
CB
Good Times, Noodle Salad
The production code.there were no censors per see.
shareThe production code.there were no censors per see.
shareThis ending was perfect, perfect for a guy like Al.