*SPOILERS* Did Addie Run-Off With Porter and THEN Brad?

First off, you really ought to drop the "if" and "supposed" routines. There are multiple primary sources directly reporting what Mankiewicz said on the subject. Furthermore, when you listen to his son talk about it, either on the DVD commentary or when I caught him hosting the film on TCM, he talks about it in terms of "he never understood how people got that interpretation". The way that he talks about it makes it very clear that he is not talking about one or two conversations; but a repeatedly stated consistent stance over a period of quite a few years (something that the son is in an almost unique position to know) because the question kept resurfacing from various people.

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To the people discussing the theoretical line "She'll find out in the morning.", it's important to quote a line correctly before interpreting details of meaning. The actual line is "She'd've found out in the morning, anyway." It's spoken by Rita, but tacitly confirmed by Porter when he shrugs off the implied needlessness of his confession with the "she'd've had a rough night" (or was that last adjective "tough" or "hard"; not sure off hand, but that choice of adjective isn't remotely as important as the difference in verb tenses).

To focus on the verb phrases, and expanding the contractions, we're looking at the difference between "will find out" and "would have found out". The future simple version "will find out" (which nobody in the movie ever says) means that it is something that *is* going to happen, and in this case implies that there is something that Deborah doesn't yet know left for her to discover later. Given what Deborah knows at that point, that would have to be that Brad has run off. The conditional perfect version (yes, I had to look up the name of that tense) means that it is something that is now *not* going to happen, in this case because Deborah already knows everything that she could possibly find out about the situation. What Deborah knows at that point, and the phrasing of the actual dialog in the movie says is correct, is that Addie had been referring to Porter and that Brad will be back in the morning.

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To the people discussing the final shot of the glass tipping, I have a couple thoughts.

First I want to address the sound, Addie's last voice over "Hi ho. Goodnight, everybody." Throughout the entire movie, all of Addie's voice overs had been delivered in tones that were upbeat, enthusiastic, optimistic, gay (in the traditional sense of the term). Given the circumstances, one could also describe that vocal tone as "self-satisfied" or the more disparagingly tinged usages of "perky". However, that last voice over is delivered entirely differently. That last line comes out quite downbeat and deflated. I would go so far as to describe Addie's tone of voice for that line as "defeated". It certainly is not the line delivery of someone who has succeeded in winning a husband away from a rival.

Then there is the visual of the glass tipping and breaking. Yes, if you take a bit of time and think back to where everyone had been earlier in the scene, you can work out that that might have been Deborah's glass ...... if it had been anyone's; that glass could have been one set at the seat that would have been Brad's. However, the last shot does absolutely nothing to make that obvious or to call attention to who's glass that may have been. Within that shot that glass is much more "a glass" than it is "Deborah's glass".

In fact, I would even go a step further than that. Given how the glass tipping is paired with Addie's voice over while no other characters are around (and that it's not a glass that we've actually seen anybody holding): for the purposes of the movie's symbolic intent, I think that glass is meant to be considered as "Addie's glass". What the glass being tipped over combined with Addie's farewell line evoked for me was the image of a chess player tipping over their own king to indicate that they are conceding the game to their opponent. That also fits perfectly with Addie's vocal delivery of her last line, as I discussed above. Another symbolic reading of Addie's champagne glass being broken (and it does break when it tips over) is that Addie has reached the point where "the party's over", figuratively speaking.

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For the people who have suggested that maybe Porter was telling the truth, but then Brad ran off with Addie after that, I have to wonder how far all of the implications of that have been thought out.

Either Addie was planning on running off with both of them, or only one.

If she had planned on taking both, then either she told the men that they were to be a threesome or she had let them each assume that they would have her to themselves.

If she had planned for both of them without telling them about each other, I can't see how she could possibly expect that to go through without a "scene" (probably a really ugly one) at the train station. It's a completely stupid idea that is almost certain to backfire in a huge way. I can't see this being how Addie set things up.

So what about a planned threesome that Porter had backed out of. First off, I don't see either of those two male characters agreeing to that. But leaving that aside for the moment ...... That would mean that Porter knows at the nightclub that Brad was gone. In that case none of Porter's behavior and dialog in the last scene makes any sense at all. This possibility just doesn't fit what we see on screen.

So, let's look at the other half of the truth table where Addie only wanted one and got Brad as a fall back position after Porter backed out. In that case, either Addie had made arrangements with Brad in advance or she hadn't.

If Addie had made arrangements with Brad in advance, then it would have had to have been on the basis of "if I call you at the last minute, maybe". It would all end up sounding like "running away with you isn't what I really want to plan, but I might change my mind and want you at the last minute". I really don't see Brad being *that* star struck by Addie that he would ever agree to ditch his whole life (wife, career, etc.; he's not like Porter in terms of owning his business) on that kind of fickle basis.

And if she hadn't made any prior arrangements with Brad, then you would have to believe that she had been able to call him at work and convince to ditch his entire life right this second, on a whim, and go straight to the train station to meet Addie and whisk off with her. I don't see Brad being remotely that impulsive. He's way too organized and methodical of a character in general for that.

In short, none of the scenarios in this whole general concept make any sense to me.

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The basic upshot of all of this:

I agree with Mankiewicz. I've never seen any ambiguity in the ending of this movie.

When Rita says that Deborah would have found out in the morning, I thought she meant that Deborah would have found out for certain that Brad was the errant husband when he failed to show up the next morning.