This was a pretty good film. I would have liked to know if Raymond Burr died or not. I also wonder if Mona could have some how gotten off, after all the guy was in her apartment going through her stuff. I do like how the marriage of the couple is left ambiguous.
shareDouble standard for sure…Mona and Johnny both shot an intruder. They both face the D.A. Johnny gets a stern lecture, Mona gets an indictment. And whether Mac pulls through or not, in both cases her fate looks grim. If he lives, the charges will be less severe, but then he'll be able to present his own version of the story, like for example he was only trying to protect her from a jealous fiance. If he's dead, Mona is still stuck with the fact that she'll be judged by a jury of people who didn't see the things we saw. The word stalker, like we use it today, wasn't commonplace yet. They'll see Mona as an adulterous woman who shot an ex-cop, without warning, into the side.
Johnny is the only one in the love quadrangle who leaves the story alive and well…but he'll have to live with the whole mess. Because of him, at least one man is dead and a woman is in jail. And sooner or later his son will find out, even if they move to another town.
You may cross-examine.
Sorry, rosarypliers, you are manufacturing the "double standard". The two cases were quite different. Johnny shot an armed intruder who had just broken into his house and who had previously threatened him. Mona just shot a (presumably unarmed) man in the back. I don't know what would have happened in California, but in Texas of 1948, where there was a double standard that usually worked in favor of the woman in such affairs, Mona's lawyer would have portrayed Mack as the brute he was, got her on the stand to tearfully relate how he was and had been bullying her, and the jury would in all likelyhood have returned a "not guilty on account of he needed killing" verdict. At worst she would have drawn a stretch of "observation" in the loony bin.
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He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45
Compare the ending of the novel with the ending of the,book and you will see that if anybody manufactured any double standard here, it was de Toth (who wrote most of the script, not the credited Kamb), probably urged by the production code censors.
sharerosarypliers says > Compare the ending of the novel with the ending of the,book and you will see that if anybody manufactured any double standard here, it was de Toth (who wrote most of the script, not the credited Kamb), probably urged by the production code censors.I have to agree with oldblackandwhite. I didn't read the book but according to what I saw in the movie there there was no double standard.
Most of your arguments sound plausible, but it was Mona who broke up with John and not the other way round, and she didn't "need" Mac to have a reason to contact John again and again.
Incase you are wondering how the book ends: John goes to prison for killing Smiley. Mac, who is not shot at all, ends up with Mona.
Also, in the book, Mona is married (not just engaged) to Smiley, Mac is a police detective, and, initially, he even encourages Forbes to start an affair with Mona.
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Mona didn't need to shoot him, in my opinion. But she was looking at for the guys ( not the stalker). At end when she said she was going to tell the cops. I thought, okay, Johnny will tell his story and she's clear. But I guess the prowler story made her believe, Johnny wasn't going to help her. Add to that he wanted her out of his life, and the plot makes sense.
If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world
Well, she could have tried to order him out at gunpoint, but I understand she was desperate. Is there anything this guy wouldn't do? I thought the next step would be to throw her into the trunk with the bags.
You may cross-examine.
Yeah, she had a gun, but I never got that shooting was an option with her until she pulled the trigger. As for McDonald, I wondered what he do next, since he used violence to settle issues. Probably take the gun from her if she hadn't caught him by surprise.
Edit: while walking the Doug's this morning I remembered that I may have guessed she was going to shoot him when she grabbed the gun. I agree with you in thinking about it. She had no other recourse at that moment. As I like how the cop said if you had only called a cop. I know the message is good triumphs, but bad I catching up. Or there are more realistic portrayals of life on film theses days.
If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world
Surely Johnny would be subpoenaed to testify in Mona's trial. Johnny may be back with his wife again and the trial will reopen fresh wounds in the marriage, publicly exposing his adulterous conduct with Mona; but Johnny's testimony will still either acquit Mona outright or, worst case scenario, see her serving a greatly reduced prison sentence compared to what would be meted out to her without Johnny's testimony.
shareWhat I don't get is Sue telling John one minute she'd never forgive him if he drags the family through the dirt by telling the truth to the police - to keep on lying. Then the next thing you know, he does exactly that and she's now suddenly willing to try and work it out at the end.
sharejonkennedy says > What I don't get is Sue telling John one minute she'd never forgive him if he drags the family through the dirt by telling the truth to the police - to keep on lying. Then the next thing you know, he does exactly that and she's now suddenly willing to try and work it out at the end.Sue explained why she had a change of heart; their son. She realized the story was already out; someone had been killed at their house. Since the police acknowledged the guy had broken in and was planning to kill him, the case would be closed as self defense. Perhaps the rest of the sordid details would not need to come out.