Yes, I understand that the Production Code required that this killer brat receive the ultimate punishment, but having her struck by lightening seems straight out of an Ed Wood sic-fi movie!
IMHO, a better ending would have been the dead boy's mother shooting or stabbing her to death, much like the ending of THE LETTER.
Here is a great ending. Everything is the same up until after Kenneth talks to Christine on the phone where she says she is going to be okay. That is minus any scenes of Rhoda getting up and going out to get the medal because in my version she never goes out. Anyway after the telephone scene it transitions to a scene of Rhoda and Kenneth at the hospital. Now Kenneth had not told Christine over the phone about Rhoda surviving. Anyway first Christine is happy to see Kenneth appear in her hospital room but then Kenneth says "and darling someone else wants to see you too". We then hear the sinister tinkle that sounds like Rhoda's piano tune and walks slowly into the room smiling charmingly. Christine's face goes from a smile to shock. Rhoda goes up to her mom and asks her "mommy what would you give me for a basket of kisses". The music now has the mood of dread. The last two shots are of Christine and Rhoda. First we see Christine's face looking scared and the very last shot before the credits is Rhoda still giving her charming smile with the music with the dread mood.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed.
I remember someone else saying that Rhoda should have visited Christine at the hospital and Christine would go into analytic shock.
shareI remember someone saying they had filmed actually three endings but went with the lightening. They must not have been sure about the code if they filmed any of Rhoda surviving. Anyway we knew certainly about the lightening ending they chose and I guess one other ending was Rhoda surviving and the mom dying like in the book. But I was so curious to know what the third ending was that nobody knows about. I am not sure why the ending I created in my seems so clear and I can picture it so well. I must have read somewhere about a similar idea like you described. I think an ending with her going to the hospital and seeing her mom would have been the scariest one of all. I can see it so well.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed.
My high school English teacher had the same view on the lightening ending.
I'm not sure there's really a way to end this other than for the story to carry forward where everyone discovers what the little girl actually is, and then they lock her up accordingly.
It's a shame they had the Production Code. The only part I'd change about this wonderful movie would be the ending. It seems like Christine should've died, Rhoda gotten away with it, and hinted Monica Breedlove would be her next victim as the credits rolled.
But if they absolutely must have a happy ending then for me the one that would've made the most sense would be for Rhoda's poisoning by pills to have worked. Christine would've survived her suicide attempt and explained everything that happened in the hospital. People would believe her and feel sorry for her. But I still prefer it to be dark and gloomy.
Horror I like the idea of the ending I wrote above.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed.
Horror2, I love it. I think I first saw this on Creature Double Feature when I was 4 or 5 myself. I didn't like the lightening ending either but I bet for 1956 audiences it was scary enough. Here is what I thought every decade since I saw it if the movie was done for the first time in these decades:
If it were done in the 70s I agree with horror2 of the ending that Christine had died and Rhoda setting her murderous sites on Mrs. Breedlove, but I would add, not before snapping the neck of the bird she's to inherit on the sunny roof.
If it were done in the 80s, Christine would have died and we would see Rhoda slashing and killing Mrs. Breedlove. Then we would see Rhoda would board a bus onto her next adventure.
If it were done in the 90s, Rhoda's dad would finish the job his wife set out and kill her himself to save humanity.
If it were done in the 2000s, the head of the school would be turned into a male, Mr. Fern, and he would have killed Rhoda in the classroom because he was close to the family, was distraught over Christine's death, and thought her husband was too blind to see that she would turn into the next Ted Bundy.
If it were done today, Mrs. Dagle would be on prescription drugs and not an alcoholic, but she would kidnap Rhoda on her way to school, make her confess and drown her in the same pond. Mrs. Dagle would then commit suicide at the pond edge. There'd be a funeral for Rhoda, as Christine would live but the last shot would be on her tearful face that ever so slightly would show a moment of relief.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!" 🐻share
i think this qualifies as a Deus Ex Machina, and you're right about the Ed Wood remark, lol
so many movies, so little time
The ending did take me by surprise, but I actually think this is one of the few times "Deus Ex Machina" works (or at least gets away with it).
I think it's quite plausible and within the realms of the plot and character for her to go out after the medal. And it makes sense for the lightning to strike her after she grabbed the net (as well as her being in the open on water too). She may have been a criminal mastermind, but even an 8 year old is prone to ignorance about the laws of nature.
The whole "Act of God" element runs alot with the end of the movie, in that they survive the suicide attempts, so I guess it set it up for the finale. That said, I suppose the final 10 minutes was rather contrived, but for me it worked.
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It would have worked well if we find out in the hospital scene that the mother died, then, are surprised that the girl hops in, hugs daddy, and gives that creepy look to the the camera.
In fact, that's how the book ends, though the father s a businessman, not a career officer. This is from wikipedia:
Christine summons up the courage to confront Rhoda, who of course, initially attempts to lie and manipulate her mother before finally confessing to killing Claude, Leroy and their elderly neighbor in Baltimore, all the while shifting blame to the victims and expressing absolutely no remorse. Christine is now unable to deny her assumptions regarding Rhoda's appalling crimes and fears that Rhoda will eventually be taken out of society forever and end up like Bessie Denker in the electric chair. In a desperate attempt to prevent Rhoda from killing anyone else and to save her daughter from a fate nearly worse than death, Christine secretly gives Rhoda an entire bottle of sleeping pills so she will die painlessly in an overdose. Devastated by what she has done, Christine then shoots herself in the head and commits suicide.
Christine dies, but a nearby neighbor hears the gun shot go off and finds Rhoda, who is still alive, but barely so. She is rushed to the hospital and survives. A heartbroken Kenneth returns home from his business trip, believing that Christine had suffered a nervous breakdown. And with no one wiser as to what she has done, Rhoda is free to kill again.
That's hilarious alright - although not nearly as much as the film-ending spanking the little twerp is administered (which, along with the curtain call stuff preceding it, clearly seems to have been devised to distance the viewer from the disturbing material and to reassure that such horrible notions as a psychopathic child on a murder spree only exist in movies).
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
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