I know in the end Leonora had to break free and Smith had to somehow suffer (in this case, with the premature loss of his baby, who he'd threatened to take custody of), but was anybody else a bit thrown by how happy Leonora and Larry were when hearing the news that the baby hadn't survived?
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God help that poor child had it lived with Smith for a father. This was a really interesting movie and I loved it. Robert Ryan at his best!!!!!!
shareit was quite strange...I just finished watching it as it was shown as a saturday afternoon movie on our government station - I'm in Australia. I was quite struck by the ending. How many women would slowly release a knowing smile upon the recent death of their premature baby? But aaaah, saccharine endings are a hollywood specialty!
shareWatched in Australia too.
Yes, I agree with what the others have said....they seemed pleased to see the baby die. Quite cold hearted IMO.
Yes I thought it was wierd to , although just like in all great tragedies someone must die. It was a bitter sweet ending I thought .
LOVED the movie though
Sweeny Todd,, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. ! PRIDE !
i found the end very disturbing as well, with all the characters so happy that a mother lost her baby.
obviously the propaganda battle to pave the way for millions of legalized abortions in the "developed" world, happened before the 1960's.
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Jiveandwail. Concerning your last comment WTF?????
I am a four eyed evil genius.
At first it is indeed off-balancing (1940s films are supposed to be conservative about these things, right?), but the ending is not as happy as it looks: the couple still has to actually deal with the divorce proceedings from Smith, and it's unlikely he'll go down without a fight.
And as a liberal, I recognize that the baby was just a fetus. This movie had really progressive thinking to show how the fetus was something which was weighing her down since the moment she found out she was pregnant, not at all a source of happiness or joy. Leonora would not have wanted a child with Smith, Larry would've been her preferred husband and father to her child; this is her chance to really have that. Even the physical loss of the fetus represents the last traces of Smith and her materialistic dreams leaving her body. So why shouldn't she see this loss as a positive thing, as a fresh start with the man she really loves?
I want the finality of love
So why shouldn't she see this loss as a positive thing, as a fresh start with the man she really loves?
Exactly, leave it to Ophuls, cinema's greatest ironist, to create a convincing happy ending around an abortion.
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
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I don't believe Smith died in the end. When Larry goes up to Leonora's bedroom to console her and she's feeling very guilty for not coming to Smith's aid, Larry says that Smith's doctors are with him and say he'll recover. So, it sounds as though Smith lives in the end.
And Leonora lost the baby (miscarried); she didn't have an abortion. You're right, Leonora was under so much stress during her pregnancy and that last event with Smith was really jarring for her and led to the miscarriage.
"I am nobody's fool. Least of all, yours."
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I didn't even get to see the ending. My rental DVD had some traces of chewing gum on the edges and the last 20 minutes were completely screwed. Damn!
As for an unsettling upbeat ending involving the loss of a child, there's a film called Penny Serenade.
The "miscarriage" may have been code for an abortion. There were all those things you couldn't say in the movies back then, like people being gay and so forth.
Or maybe it really was a miscarriage. Maybe she was just relieved the kid escaped, because if the evil man lived he'd have insisted on owning it.
Let's just say that God doesn't believe in me.
Smith recovered, and it was a miscarriage. She started having premature labor pains in her bedroom. Yes, I did find it disconcerting that the movie ended with her smiling. As much as she was happy to be able to be free from Smith (since he didn't have their baby to control her now), I can't imagine a woman reacting that way, at least initially. There's too much "bonding hormone" (oxytocin) in her system to feel otherwise.
I saw it on TCM last night and Robert Osborne and the TCM employee guest host explained that the film's production company went bust during its filming (due to the expenses incurred making "Arch of Triumph") and that the ending was sort of slapped together. They mentioned something about not having enough $ to create the proper sets, etc., but I would hope that didn't mean they cut corners with the actual script and ended the film on this "happy" ending.
There was no abortion. The baby was born premature and didn't survive. Smith brought it on by not allowing Lee to follow doctor's orders to rest. He was keeping her up all the time. She was absolutely exhausted and at the breaking point in the scene where Franzi was ordered to bring her downstairs and she refused to go. This is what drove Franzi to finally leave his cushy position. In the ambulance, Larry was trying to give Lee the will to live because he knew the situation for the baby was hopeless and, although it seems crass to talk about it at that point, he was giving her the silver lining.
"What else can you fellas play outside of "Tiger Rag" and pinochle?"
I came on here to post the same thing. What an odd-- and possibly unique-- Hollywood ending: a celebration over a dead baby!
I, too, was astonished by the fact that the virtually perfect heroine (Bel Geddes), as well as the virtually perfect hero Mason), seemed pleased when she lost her baby. That brief disclosure is inordinately abrupt and weirdly reassuring. I know of no other film in which the death of a newborn is treated in so glibly positive a manner. As a plot point, it has an accidental up side, but for the infant's death to be regarded as part of a happy ending is quite strange from a moral and spiritual vantage.
shareI was thinking they may have been more relieved (not happy) that the miscarriage was due to nature taking it's course. Remember, the father was obviously insane, the child may have inherited the insanity as well.
shareGood point. And even if the child doesn't inherit his father's psychosis, his mental faculties would still be heavily influenced by it. Smith made it very clear that he was going to torment Leonora and use the child as a tool to totally mess her up so I can't imagine the horrifying effect that living under his thumb would ultimately have on the child him/herself. I also agree that Lary+Leonora weren't so much "happy" as they were "relieved." B/c they both knew, despite the tragedy, that what happened was probably far better for the child.
shareMaybe the child inherited Smiths weak heart condition and gave out before it was born. We know from the newpaper gossip article dates the child was at least 5-6 months along.
Back then, the idea was that insanity was hereditary; a child whose parent was insane was doomed anyway. They may have believed that it was for the best.
In the ambulance he says the baby will die, and she smiles. She hadn't even lost it yet and they were celebrating. She was as bad a parent as Smith.. And the doctor was pouring liquor down her throat?
I guess it's like looking at clouds. You see one thing and I see another. Peace.