MovieChat Forums > Ragtime (1981) Discussion > Did anyone else notice...

Did anyone else notice...

posted 18 years ago by brainybrailler
5 replies | jump to latest

For those who have seen the musical; I haven't seen the movie so don't know if the epilogue describing how the main characters died on continue to live was in it. It mentions the historic fact that Emma Goldman was arrested twice, but it never mentioned Harry Houdini's death at 52 when a young man boxed him off-stage to see if he wouldn't react with pain. Why is this fact about his death omitted? I don't know whether he was actually present at the Archduke's shooting (my senses tell me it's untrue) and I realize they didn't mention how the other real-life characters died...but still, am I the only one who doesn't think not stating that fact makes sense??

[–] ANDREWEHUNT 18 years ago

Milos Forman chose not to include Goldman or Houdini in the film (there was a scene with Goldman and Nesbit that was cut from the film). The film version is very scaled back compared to the book and musical. It's a good film, but more focused and personal, and less epic, than the novel and musical.

[–] brainybrailler 18 years ago

Yeah, I've heard they cut a lot out of this. Odd.

[–] tito131 18 years ago

this was posted a while ago i realize but nobody touched on it.

the epilogue in the movie is way different, in fact if I recall correctly there is no epilogue.. Father doesn't die in the movie... the last we see of him or mother is him watching mother get into the car with Tateh as they go on a pleasure drive.

Tateh and mother never meet until he's already a director and filming in atlantic city. Younger Brother actually gets Evelyn Nesbit but things don't go so well. Nesbit and Tateh actually have a scene where he draws her a silhouette of herself down in the filthy tenements.

I think those are the most notable things that occur that are different than the musical. I suggest you see it...it is quite good. though there is a very unexpected nude scene...or at least topless scene.

First she's Jekyll and then she's Hyde. At least she makes a Lovely pair.

T.RK.F.

[–] sissoed 17 years ago

tito131 -- (spoilers follow!) interesting you see the final scene as Mother going on merely a "pleasure drive" with Tatel -- I always understood it to mean that Mother was leaving Father to live with Tatel (probably after a divorce). The reason I see it this way is that a little earlier, when Father leaves Mother at the hotel in Atlantic City to go to NYC and try to talk Coalhouse into giving up the siege, Father calls the hotel at Atlantic City to speak with Mother and learns, to his surprise, that she has checked-out. This indicates that Mother, after the argument they had over the police attempt to take Coalhouse's baby, has decided to leave Father.

[–] gerald-flynn 16 years ago

From the movie, you do get the impression that Mother was divorcing Father, but that is not what was in the book or the musical

SPOILER ALERT!

In the book and musical, father died on the Lusitania when it was sunk; he was on a business trip at the time. After an "appropriate" mourning period, Mother and Tateh married and raised the boy, girl and young Coalhouse. There's a really neat twist to that but . . . . read the book! It looks long but it's a very quick read and you will be delighted by the final triumph of Tateh.