...that Leo was dead? They couldn't get to him to check his pulse or anything, it would be rather irresponsible to assume he was dead (rather than perhaps passed out/unconscious/coma) and have them stop drilling. I really liked the movie, but it seems this is a bit of a plot hole.
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Well, I don't think it's a plot hole, since in terms of the movie, when they say he's dead, the audience is supposed to assume this as fact.
But though they couldn't physically touch Leo, when he died he'd visibly (and audibly) stop breathing, his mouth would fall open and his eyes would likely stay open too, not blinking. This and not moving would all be pretty solid indicators that Leo had died. If he'd just passed out or gone into a coma he'd still be breathing, and in his condition, gasping for breath, you'd know right away if he were still alive. His breathing wouldn't cease if he just lost consciousness.
I agree it's too convenient a 'cheat' as they say. He may have looked dead, and in fact he was, but it's not realistic to turn the whole ending on that supposition. Oh well, we just have to go with it and accept that it is true...
Also if Tatum us supposed to die from loss of blood, I don't think there was enough of that pouring out of him, but we have to accept it as a plot twist.
Other things seem wrong to me, so I don't give this movie a high rating. In my opinion there were just too many people and cars as spectators, but sometimes movies over-do stuff.
"Did you make coffee...? Make it!"--Cheyenne.
There's nothing "convenient" about any of this, and what's the "cheat" -- that you didn't see him die? Was that important for some reason?
Clearly, Tatum and the priest came up after Leo had died. It wasn't necessary for the audience to see him expire. In fact, in terms of the film, that may be the one bit of decency Billy Wilder allowed for poor Leo...to let him die in peace. To term any of this convenient or cheap is nonsense.
Tatum was bleeding a lot more than you might initially realize -- in a black and white movie it's not as obvious, and it took a few viewings before I grasped the extent of his bleeding near the end, when he gets back to the newspaper office.
Interesting you mention about there being too many cars. When they were getting ready to shoot the scenes at the mountain, the film company placed ads in the local papers and went on the radio asking people to drive their cars out to fill up the area for the exterior shots. The response was massive. What you see in the film isn't a carefully plotted or overdone scene faked for plot purposes -- it's real drivers in their own cars responding to a chance to be in a movie...even if only as long-distance extras. The filmmakers never expected to get such an overwhelming response, but it helped prove a central tenet of the film -- people will turn out for any sort of media circus.
Sorry you don't give this movie a high rating. It was Wilder's favorite of all his films, as it is in many people's opinions, mine included.
Also if Tatum us supposed to die from loss of blood, I don't think there was enough of that pouring out of him, but we have to accept it as a plot twist.
We don't see much of Tatum's front after he's stabbed -- he keeps the wound and any blood mostly hidden from view. It really isn't until the end, when he gets to the newspaper office and we finally see him covered with blood (and the shocked look of his co-workers at what they see), that we see how much blood he's lost.
But you have to remember that Tatum let this wound go untreated for around 12 hours or more -- Lorraine stabbed him (and not a little jab) in the morning and he died late that night at the office. In between he drove, walked, crawled through the cave and did a lot of other vigorous physical activity that would have increased the bleeding, and anything he drank would have made it worse as well. This wasn't a tiny wound to begin with but a deep stab from a fairly sizable pair of scissors. In itself it wasn't immediately lethal but if you let yourself bleed uncontrollably for many hours, all the while moving around and pumping more blood out of the wound, you certainly will bleed to death.
I guess what I object to is the stinking Hays Code yet again. Which probably dictated somehow that any showing of blood would be extremely limited and always very dark grey.
In real life, there's no way - NO WAY - he could die like this. I mean in the sense that any of a dozen people who were around him would have seen the blood, the gallons of blood, grabbed him, and taken him to a hospital. Period. Think about Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs. He's literally sitting in a pool of his own blood the whole movie, and it's only getting deeper as the movie goes on. Regardless of the medical/anatomy aspects of it, that seems much more right to me.
But again, I'm railing against something that it's stupid for me to rail against - the Code. For example, in another Wilder triumph, Sunset Blvd., when Holden's floating in the pool, that water ought to be streaked plenty red from all the blood that's oozed out of him while he's been floating around. Of course, that's never shown - that damned pesky Code. But there it's not a big point - in fact, it doesn't really affect anything whether the blood oozes all over the place or not. Here it does. Here it matters because people would have saved him, in spite of himself.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I think you're overplaying the Code's effect here. Still, you make a valid point, that you'd think someone would have forced Tatum to go to a hospital before it was too late. He seemed to be disguising the wound for a while but by late in the day even Herbie knew he was in serious trouble. But he just obeyed what Tatum told him to do (drive him back to Albuquerque, three hours away). The lack of what today we'd call being proactive is a bit annoying.
But it fits in with the needs of the picture, and not just because of the Hays Code. Wilder wanted Tatum dead anyway -- the Code didn't dictate that. In fact, the original draft of the story began with Boot and Herbie standing at the Albuquerque railroad station, preparing to put Chuck's coffin aboard for shipment back to New York, with the dead Tatum narrating the opening -- just as William Holden does in Sunset Boulevard -- with the story told in flashback. But cooler heads prevailed, convincing Wilder not to begin yet a second picture in a row with a dead man narrating it, so this sequence was never actually filmed and the movie was told in a straight narrative fashion.
(Originally, Sunset Boulevard began in the L.A. Morgue, with rows of dead bodies with toe tags lining the room and several of the dead relating how they died, finishing with Holden telling his story. This sequence actually was filmed and previewed, but audiences roared with laughter at it and it destroyed the whole mood of the film, so it was cut out and changed to what we see now. Holden's body wasn't really in the pool, but photographed from above using a mirror to make it look like he was floating in the pool, so that would account for no blood in the water. But you're right, in real life there would have been a lot of it.)
I think you're overplaying the Code's effect here.
No, let me clarify: I'm not saying the Code demanded Tatum die; it may well have done so, but in this case the Code may have been somewhat ambiguous, since Tatum doesn't actually kill Leo. I just said that regardless, Wilder wanted it that way. I don't find an issue with how this comes about, but I understand your problem with it.
Also, about the blood, I wasn't referring to what the Code may or may not have said about how much blood could be shown. I really don't know what if anything concerning the amount of blood that could be depicted was addressed by the Code. Much of this was I think just a reflection of the practices or morals of the time, when showing too much (or sometimes any) blood was simply deemed in poor taste, or too gross. I never heard of directors in that era longing to show lots of blood anyway. Movies only gradually moved toward showing more blood, but as I say I think this was a matter of taste rather than due to any rules or prohibition. Excessive violence was frowned on and the Code did cover this, but even before the Code little blood was shown. Violence, yes, but not much blood, or graphic injuries.
In Double Indemnity Wilder did much the same as he did in Ace: we find that the protagonist is bleeding profusely, but see little of it, because Wilder kept it hidden for most of the picture. Again, I'm not sure how much of this was due to Code restrictions or just general levels of public taste prevalent at the time. The same goes for Sunset Boulevard.
Yes, in DI Keyes gets to Neff before he bleeds out, and from the last dialogue we learn that they'll patch him back up, only to stick him in the gas chamber at Q. You're quite right, Wilder filmed such a scene, but dropped it as it was deemed too gruesome (but nothing to do with the Code -- you can't show blood, but gassing someone is just dandy!). The footage is lost, but there is a surviving still of the scene, and it is pretty disturbing.
Speaking of Double Indemnity, did you catch the fact that Mr. Ferderber -- the gleep who with his family was the first on the scene -- said he was in the insurance game in Gallup, and that his outfit was the "Pacific All-Risk"? That's the same firm Neff and Keyes worked for in DI! Wilder sometimes re-used names and dialogue in multiple films.
Oh, in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, Ray Milland, while examining the body, starts to say, "There's hardly any blood. When he fell he must have --" and then stops, when he sees Grace rummaging in her bag: he's worried she's looking for her missing key (she's looking for an aspirin). We never do find out the reason Milland thought there was so little blood.
Speaking of Double Indemnity, did you catch the fact that Mr. Ferderber -- the gleep who with his family was the first on the scene -- said he was in the insurance game in Gallup, and that his outfit was the "Pacific All-Risk"? That's the same firm Neff and Keyes worked for in DI! Wilder sometimes re-used names and dialogue in multiple films.
Yeah, like I said, Wilder liked to use many of the same things twice -- actors, character names, dialogue and so on. Oddly, two actors he never worked with again were Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling, though he wanted to work with Kirk on both Stalag 17 and Witness for the Prosecution; but for various reasons it never worked out.
The actor who played Mr. Boot was Porter Hall (1888-1953), who often played small-town hicks or nasty little men. His role as Boot was one of his few truly sympathetic roles, and one of his best. If you've seen the original 1947 Miracle on 34th Street he was the vicious little store psychologist who has Kris Kringle committed.
And you have a good eye -- the actor who plays Nagle the editor in Ace played the head of Pacific All-Risk in DI. He was Richard Gaines (1904-1975), who almost always played obnoxious professional men.
I almost mentioned "The Great S&M Amusement Company". I wonder how many people got that in 1951...or even today! But typical Wilder.
Yeah, he was pretty obnoxious in Miracle. But he makes the movie. A terrific foil for Kris.
I want the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
There is a scene near the end where Leo is wearing the oxygen mask and his respirations are well over 30 per minute. At that point his systems are failing and he’s in serious trouble.
When a person at that stage of distress stops breathing and becomes unresponsive, it’s reasonable to assume that death is imminent.