The Silver Screen Oasis

Mine is more wish fulfillment. I actually have too many obligations, too much stuff, and too many people. But I always dream of flying, running, adventure, travel. Carrying nothing at all.

Starring David Janssen as...THE FUGITIVE!

I'll have to dye my hair blonde. No black!

Richard Kimble and company have been in color the last few Sunday nights. Rich, striking colors. Some of the best I've seen on the small screen. I didn't think I'd like seeing these dark themes "lit up." But it works quite well. Good TV!

I have no real reason, but my favorite episodes are in black and white. I don't remember whether the color is distinctive or not.

Have you seen the episode with John McGiver and little John Fiedler yet? Called The End Game, they play elderly roommates battling over whether or not to turn in Kimble. One of the few funny episodes. It's priceless! My favorite episode.

I don't think I have. Not recently, at any rate.

Sometimes sad endings can be the right sort of ending. The ones I like are both happy and sad. Something like Long Voyage Home where Olsen does make it home but Driscoll does not. It worked for both characters.

I love Red River but the ending never works for me. Its a forced happy ending. I could never imagine Dunson just giving in like that. Not sure how I wanted it to end but not that way.

What I do not like is sad endings that are forced on you. I have seen few not very good romantic movies lately where the ending seems to get rid of the hero but leave the heroine pregnant as some sort of psuedo compensation. I hate that.

Forced endings always annoy me. Some of the old time movies where bad guys had to suffer for their sins or heroes cannot be villians. I always wish Susoician had been made with Cary Grant as a real villian.

dee

Roger Ebert, rest his soul, said characters should do what they would really do in that situation. Not what the script calls for them to do. That way (I'm paraphrasing), the characters give birth to the story, rather than the other way around.

I am going to be very concise and straight to the point; I agree with most of the intelligent assessments made by everyone, but if I have to think in my particular case, sad endings resonate much more with me; I only have to think of my top favorite films: "Portrait of Jennie" (1948), "Peter Ibbetson" (1935), "The Wedding Night" (1935), "Letter from an Unknown Woman" (1948), "The Constant Nymph" (1943), "Madame Bovary" (1949), "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)...there are some exceptions: "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947), "Love Me Tonight" (1932), "Lucky Star" (1929) and "Dodsworth" (1936), among others, but the sad ending which leaves me with a sense of heartbreak affects me much more and the movie tends to linger on in my mind, forever. Maybe it is the masochistic guy in me, who knows?

Just caught up with this topic and want to get my two cents in.

Since it's my favorite film, I have to agree with Jack Favell that, "The ambiguous ending gets a big vote from me, too, Mike. How about The 400 Blows for instance?" I'm sure that ending plays an important part in making it my favorite film. It's possibly the most painfully-sweet coming-of-age moment ever filmed.

But the one ending that always leaves me with damp eyes and a warm feeling inside is:

"I was to think of those days many times, of Jem and Dill and Boo Radley and Tom Robinson---and Atticcus. He would be in Jem's room all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning."

Me too, Theresa.

Hell, most of that movie makes me cry.

A great movie to have as a favorite, Lucky! Can you tell me why it's your favorite?

I read just recently an article where the author said The 400 Blows had a HAPPY ending, and I was stunned that someone could label it as such. I've never thought of it as happy, but the author made a good point, that his life is now his own. This person had been a runaway as well. I had to think of the movie in an entirely different way than I had always thought about it. It actually shocked me that one could see it as such, because for me, it was a heartbreaking end, neither one thing or the other, just his life continuing at a sort of an impasse. That look at the end, directly into the camera... wow. I always took it to mean that he's lost, maybe forever, in a world where he doesn't matter. I am not talking about the future films in that series, but just taking that film for what I see it to be.

After reading this thread for the 2nd or 3rd time, I'm curious about "THE END" and this is one of the movies that I definitely want to check out for myself.

JackFavell wrote:A great movie to have as a favorite, Lucky! Can you tell me why it's your favorite?

I read just recently an article where the author said The 400 Blows had a HAPPY ending, and I was stunned that someone could label it as such. I've never thought of it as happy, but the author made a good point, that his life is now his own. This person had been a runaway as well. I had to think of the movie in an entirely different way than I had always thought about it. It actually shocked me that one could see it as such, because for me, it was a heartbreaking end, neither one thing or the other, just his life continuing at a sort of an impasse. That look at the end, directly into the camera... wow. I always took it to mean that he's lost, maybe forever, in a world where he doesn't matter. I am not talking about the future films in that series, but just taking that film for what I see it to be.

Hard to say, Jack, I think a lot of it is that I love coming-of-age-films. Also, it arrived at a time when films, in general, were getting pretty far from reality, and it threw a bucket of cold water on that idea. In what other film of the period do you find a main character emptying the garbage pail? And, perhaps most important, that last, frozen look spelled, for me, his final loss of innocence.

Thanks, Lucky. That's pretty much my viewpoint too on the film. It's such a stark presentation of life, there's nothing Hollywood about it.