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Your reaction, thoughts to the ending and its twist (Spoilers)

posted 16 years ago by Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday
28 replies | jump to latest

I'm always a little surprised that people think this has a twist ending, or at least when I first saw it. I was so caught up in the complexity of the characters that I almost forgot the mystery of Who Killed Mildred Atkinson, so I never tried to solve it before it came. Nicholas Ray and his screenwriter I think both recognized that the film was first and foremost a love story about two deeply flawed people searching for one last chance at redemption, a far cry from the thriller this movie was advertised as.

In retrospect I think the biggest twist is how it skillfully avoided the usual traps of the genre and its censorship (which stipulated that the bad guys had to pay for their crime, either by death, insanity or imprisonment) of that time. I once read that this movie and its genre could essentially end two ways: Dix can be found guilty and dragged away by the police to the fadeout, or he can be innocent and he and Laurel have a tender embrace. The first one was actually more or less the original ending that Andrew Solt and Nicholas Ray had written, which was filmed before Ray realized how much he hated it. So he cleared the set (including the producers and even Lauren Bacall, who was visiting Bogart for the first time) of everyone except Bogart, Gloria Grahame and Art Smith (who wasn't used), and together they half improvised, half rewrote the ending. This is the real ending that the movie deserves, because Laurel and Dix are more complex and mature than what those endings could ever allude to. James Harvey wrote a wonderful essay about this movie in his book Movie Love in the Fifties, and there's one paragraph about this ending that I really want to point out: "Not only the final film but also the presence and performance of Bogart and Grahame make that earlier rejected ending, with all its trashy, dumb irony, seem all but unimaginable. The grown-upness of Laurel and Dix is so central to our sense of them--their ability to recognize the too late-ness, to accept what cannot be unsaid and undone. Whatever their problems and flaws (sizable in both), they are not the sort of characters who need to be arrested or killed to understand finality."

That's pretty much a huge reason to the success of that ending, which recognizes Dix and Laurel's flaws but doesn't judge them for it. Instead, it allows the characters to realize that although they may love each other deeply, they are too victimized by their own selves and past failures (whatever they may be) to maintain a long-lasting companionship. This incredibly mature yet heartbreaking end of an affair is I think why the film has survived and aged as well as it has over the decades.

I also found a film podcast called Filmspotting that discussed their Top 5 Favorite Twist Endings, and In a Lonely Place made its way on a list (when found among Psycho, Planet of the Apes and The Usual Suspect, THAT was the real twist to the list). The commentator explained this: "It takes noir and subverts some of the conventions of noir films and the ending that it gives you...is not what you would expect from a film of this type--and it's all the more powerful for it. Especially when you're considering that you've got Humphrey Bogart's character and you've got Humphrey Bogart the man who we expect to be this sort of, you know, this rough and tumble kind of guy (he certainly is that), but the way the film layers on these aspects of his character, that he's very down trodden and beaten down by life, and seeking redemption in the arms of this woman is very powerful, and the ending takes that and does something more to it than a conventional noir film would." The podcast is found here, for all who are interested (this section is about 3/4 into it) http://cdn4.libsyn.com/cinecast/cinecast032906.mp3.

What are your thoughts and your reactions to this ending?

I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me

[–] artihcus022 16 years ago

I think that the film was lucky to have ended the way it did, that's all! If this film wasn't made at an independent studio but a big one, then it would have to end with a fake ending(like the kind in Suspicion, Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Ray's very own Bigger Than Life) of some kind. It's essentially a film that got away with it.

One of the few of it's kind back then. Preston Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek was another famous, extreme example. Another one was Samuel Fuller's masterpiece The Steel Helmet(which nonetheless got Fuller to explain himself at the pentagon). But there's more to the film aside from being an uncompromised look at relationships, it's really a film about violence, of it being connected to self-righteous and self-destructive anger, about self-loathing. It's a film that's made with anger really and the complete despair of the film is only made palatable because of the characters and the actors.

I wasn't that surprised at the ending. When I first saw it, what attracted to me was the character of Dixon, brilliant, violent and quite funny and charming. And also the odd bits of humour in the film and the grim atmosphere but the way the film was building up I knew that the two of them couldn't stay with each other and the film ended exactly as it should ended. Then I saw it again and again and what interests me again is the use of sets, the characters but more the sense of pure emotion. Ray as a director is often called a master of pure emotion. In that few directors are able to express emotions so honestly without any sentimentality. Ray was one of the few along with Antonioni, Bergman, Truffaut, Scorsese, Douglas Sirk, Raoul Walsh, John Ford.

"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

It's funny that you should mention Suspicion, because I was on a board saying that there was a similarity between the Hitchcock film and this one in plot and also the fact that both of their endings were drastically changed and re-shot, one for the better and one for the worse (the thread is here: http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000010/thread/100440270?d=100440270&p =1#100440270). The ending Suspicion is a betrayal that the film doesn't deserve, and it's certainly not the one Hitchcock had intended, and even though there is some amount of ambiguity in Cary Grant's character by the end, it feels wrong and patched-up (of course, despite Cary's immense talent, I think Hitchcock took his screen image too far in the dark direction and he's unconvincing as a would-be murder, so it was flawed from the beginning; he was much more complex and convincing as a stoic secret agent in Notorious).

Luckily, Nicholas Ray got the ending that was right for his movie, and you're right that at most other big studios that ending would've been compromised, but Humphrey Bogart was the producer and not only was he good friends with Nicholas Ray, he was a very intelligent man that his screen image probably wouldn't have alluded to. He looked at both endings and decided he liked the re-shot one more, and we're all the better for it.

I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me

[–] artihcus022 16 years ago

That it was Ray's prefferred ending certainly would have convinced him. Besides I don't think Bogart liked the idea of playing a murderer again so he preffered the ending as we know it.

I personally think Suspicion is one of Hitchcock's more interesting second-tier films. Films which are not quite great but endlessly interesting and worthwhile to see like Rope, Under Capricorn, Suspicion, and dare I say, Topaz. Like it's the first time Hitchcock was going for something very pessimistic and the reason the ending is absurd is that the entire film before it expects the audience to assume that Cary Grant is going to kill Joan Fontaine and the last scene doesn't rid the audience of the emotions it accumulates before that since it's pretty obvious that it's from the good ol' folks at the Censors.

The happy ending in many cases, especially crime films was often hollow and fake and imposed by the studios who were horribly conservative. But directors got a way around that and often smuggled what they wanted to say to the audience, so much so that many audience members and critics became adept at reading and differentiating between real happy endings and fake happy endings. Film director dissatisfied with it would intentionally sabotage the ending and shoot it badly. The common one is, "it was all a dream". Douglas Sirk's melodramas often ended with false endings like using cliches in All That Heaven Allows or the baroque final funeral scene with the marching bands and the white horses that ends Imitation of Life, making the reunion with Susan Kohner with Lana Turner and her daughter ring false.

Ray's Bigger Than Life if you ever see it has this kind of ending. On Dangerous Ground ends with what I thought was a fake ending but was actually Ray's intended way of ending the film only for Hughes to hack it and take all life from it. So that's a rare case where producers disliked a real happy ending and preferred a fake one in it's stead. That's Howard Hughes for you.

"Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." - Nathanael West

[–] schmidt_haus 16 years ago

Ye gods! I recorded this film when it was on over Christmas on BBC2 and finally got round to watching it this afternoon - only the recording stopped before the film did!!!!!

Can some kind soul please explain what happened at the end for me? I saw up to the bit where Dix realises Laurel is planning to run to New York and nearly strangles her before getting the call that Kessler(?) has confessed.

What happened then? What was the twist?

Many thanks,

Schmidt-Haus

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

There's about a minute left from where your tape stopped. I'll fill in the rest from memory (I've seen this movie about 10 times):

Dix has just heard of his innocence and, with a horrifying, dead look on his face, looks towards Laurel, who has emerged from the room rubbing her neck. "A man wants to apologize to you..." He drops the phone on the edge of her couch and begins to walk away. Laurel picks up the phone. With a scratchy voice: "Hello?"

Cut to Lochner. Lochner: "Ms. Gray? I just wanted to apologize for all the trouble we've put you through. Mr. Steele is absolutely in the clear. I hope you'll accept this."

Cut to Laurel, on the phone. With a sad look in her eyes, she says, "Yesterday, this would've meant so much to us. Now it doesn't matter...it doesn't matter at all." There is a shot of Dix, who with a devastating understanding for what she's said, turns her knob and walks out the door. Laurel puts the phone down and for a moment looks as though she's going to say something (NOTE: in the trailer, which features some of what was res-shot after the original ending didn't sit to well with Mr. Ray, has Laurel crying out Dix's name and running towards him for an embrace one last time. This was cut from the film), but she doesn't. Instead she leans against her door and says quietly to herself, "I lived a few weeks while you loved me....goodbye, Dix." Dix is still walking away, pauses for a moment under the archway, and then continues as THE END flashes over. And we have no idea where he's going, if he's going to seek help or if he's going to drown his sorrows...or worse.

Depending on how much you were paying attention to the murder mystery, there isn't much of a twist here, at least not in the plot structure. The film's poster advertised it as "A Bogart Suspense...With a Twist End!" I suppose that given the film's genre and its time period, there were essentially only two ways it could've ended: Dix being found guilty and dragged away by the police (which is more or less how the film originally ended) or Dix being found innocent and Laurel giving him a warm embrace. What was very skillful of the filmmakers is that even though we know that Bogart's persona was that of an anti-hero, we're never quite sure that he's in the clear until the last minute, and Nicholas Ray was far more interested in the darkness of his heart rather than the plot's question of Who Killed Mildred Atkinson?, and as a result the ending stays truthful to the characters, which was a rarity in those days. To me the biggest twist was how the film failed to fall in to the two cliched endings said above. I was wondering if others had the same experience.

I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me

[–] schmidt_haus 16 years ago

Thanks for filling me in. I have to say that it doesn't really strike me as a twist - a twist would've been Laurel being the murderer - although how she would've been able to do it is beyond me!

It's good that an overly melodramatic ending was avoided. Good film overall.

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

Also, you can experience the gut-wrenching ending on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AoIzHUag34.

I was born when she kissed me
I died when she left me
I lived a few weeks while she loved me

[–] steveintucson 10 years ago

Wow, after reading your note: (NOTE: in the trailer, which features some of what was res-shot after the original ending didn't sit to well with Mr. Ray, has Laurel crying out Dix's name and running towards him for an embrace one last time. This was cut from the film) I rewatched the trailer and indeed, the last scene in the trailer does not appear in the movie.

Thanks, a little bit of fascinating trivia that I would never have noticed had you not pointed it out.

[–] ladylavende 16 years ago

I had the same experience as you. I completely forgot about the murder mystery going on. I was instead taken in by the love story; I particularly liked the scene where Dix explains that a good love scene is one that doesn't focus on the love aspect, like the one he and Laurel are in, just cutting up grapefruit. There's this really great feel of a movie commenting on itself (I think there's a literary term for this, but I forget it). Dix is writing a screenplay, but it fits so well with what we're watching that at times I felt like I wasn't watching a movie anymore, but that I was there with him as he wrote the script. The big twist was no great shock to me, just an appropriately ironic ending. So, it turns out he's not a monster after all. We got it wrong. We apologize. But should we? Were we really wrong? It's a fabulous ending to a wonderful film. I'll be watching this one again soon.

If you tickle us, do we not laugh? http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=8093247

[–] ProfessorFate 16 years ago

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

[–] chuckleberryfinn21 16 years ago

"There's this really great feel of a movie commenting on itself (I think there's a literary term for this, but I forget it)."

Self referential or meta reference.

[–] ProfessorFate 16 years ago

Are you joking?

No.

"Push the button, Max!"

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

To be honest I felt the ending lacked punch. I think a better ending would have been to have Laurel kill Dix while defending herself, maybe have them move to the balcony and she manages to push him over (or maybe the railing breaks) and he falls to his death. Then she gets the phone call telling her that Dix had been cleared of the murder.

I'm sorry, but your alternate ending is childish; Nicholas Ray stayed true to the characters, and he said so himself that the reason why he re-shot the original ending of Dix killing Laurel in the heat of their argument (which is really the gender-switched version of yours, Professor Fate) was because he knew that relationships didn't have to end in violence, which also doubles as something of an examining of his own crumbling relationship with Gloria Grahame. What's on-screen is actually much more mature and pessimistic than what any violence or death could ever do. Save the violence for a dime-store novel--In a Lonely Place is pure cinema.

An ironic ending showing what mistrust can do to two people who really love each other.

But that's what the ending already does!! What's ironic isn't that Dix is innocent, but that it doesn't really matter; Laurel has lost her trust for him regardless of what the police tell her, and Dix has become so possessive over Laurel that she can't breathe. It's plain that these two souls love each other, but they're too flawed for a movie's happy ending.

"Go on, tell me...tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood."

[–] cattard-1 16 years ago

The ending is perfect. I always felt that this was a flawless film & probably Nicholas Ray's masterpiece.

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

I'm waiting to see Bigger than Life to make the definitive statement about Ray's masterpiece, but the film is pretty much flawless.

Happy Birthday, Ingrid Bergman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkI4f_UrKmc

[–] cattard-1 16 years ago

I've seen all his work on the French C Cinema channel (they did a four month Nicholas Ray retrospective, no one loves Ray as much as the French). I feel that "In A Lonely Place" showed what Nicholas Ray was capable of doing without the studio tampering or interference which spoiled some of his work.

I really loved "On Dangerous Ground" as well despite having some problems with the "happy ending" that feels tacked on. Having said that, I still think it's great.

The only Ray film I totally hated was "The Flying Leathernecks". It was nothing but right wing propoganda crap that Ray himself did not care about. He was forced to do it by Howard Hughes, most probably to get the HUAC off his back.

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

Arg, I wish I lived in France!

I definitely liked On Dangerous Ground, but the happy ending rings a little false for me, and even though a lot of people mistakenly think that the ending is what Howard Hughes tampered with (it was actually the chronology of the story; the ending was directed by Ida Lupino when Ray fell ill, and Ray saw it and liked it), it feels a little rushed and a little false; perhaps I just hold the dark ending to In a Lonely Place pretty high up in reverence, but Nicholas Ray's romances worked best with people who could match each other's flaws (Bowie and Keechie's tarnished innocence, Laurel and Dix's Hollywood disillusionment, Jeff and Louise's homelessness, Jim and Judy's confusing adolescence, etc.), and Mary's blindness combined with her living in the metaphorical virgin forest (Ray's constant theme was of men losing perspective because of their uneasy environment, as Jim Wilson does in the city), despite Ida Lupino's great performance, pushes a little too hard at a redemptive ending.

Humphrey Bogart and Nicholas Ray were almost destined for each other professionally, because they were both rebels within the studio system. Bogart feuded with Jack Warner constantly, and Ray was simply a maverick at working with actors and revealing things about them that they probably didn't want to see themselves (either that, or simply grasping a great performance out of them); he and Orson Welles were the great enfant terribles of the 1940s. Their first film together was the weak Knock on Any Door, which feels more like a weak re-hasing of the social conscience message films at Warner Bros. when it was meant to be inspired by Ray's debut They Live by Night, which got Ray hired after Bogart had been impressed with the debut. In a way it's good that their first film together was merely practice to see how the other worked because In a Lonely Place is unlike anything of that time period and still is such a rarity today, because of the amazing sense of character and environment and insecurity. Laurel and Dix are amazingly well-suited for each other, a combination of toughness and vulnerability whose love will both nurture and destroy the other. Most romances in films have two people who don't deserve to be together--this usually happens in terrible, neurotic romantic comedies starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey--but they do; in this film, Laurel and Dix deserve to be together--the audience certainly wants this film to have a happy ending, to have Laurel save Dix from himself--but they can't--and don't, which is what makes the ending both so true and so unbearable--and what makes the trashy, original ending so wrong. I think it's lucky that Bogart and Ray had a certain amount of trust in each other (they became good friends and wanted to make more movies together), which allowed Ray to do some really unorthodox things with his direction, which included closing the set and having the actors improvise/re-write the ending that we see on-screen, and Bogart reaching deep into himself to give a performance that is the most interesting, the most complex and the best of his career.

I haven't seen Flying Leathernecks yet, but if I want to be a Ray afficionada I'll probably have to eventually. It's considered to be his most anonymous work; Geoff Andrews has very little to say about it, as did Bernard Eisenschitz, both whose books on Nicholas Ray dedicate few pages to that movie. The script to I Married a Communist at RKO was really just Howard Hughes' way of seeing who was loyal and who wasn't, and anyone who turned it down got fired--everyone except Nicholas Ray, who somehow, possibly due to his friendship with Hughes, was professionally saved by Hughes, and actually got a raise and a renewed contract after he turned it down. Ray did have to make the right-wing aviation film, but it's still pretty impressive that he was able to untangle himself from I Married a Communist.

Happy Birthday, Ingrid Bergman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkI4f_UrKmc

[–] cattard-1 16 years ago

It’s good to read something intelligent on an IMDB discussion board for a change.

I totally agree with you – Knock on Any Door was rather weak. Its heart is in the right place, unfortunately, sermons and speeches should be limited to churches and political rallies. However, Bogart is great in it; (he was practically brilliant in everything). On the other hand, John Derek was disappointing. Ray would have better luck portraying troubled youths six years later in Rebel Without a Cause.

Luis Bunuel did a far better job in depicting juvenile delinquency with his masterful “Los Olvidados” which came out a year after Knock on Any Door. Ray himself acknowledged this saying; that had Bunuel made Los Olvidados earlier, Knock on Any Door would have been a “hell of a lot better film."

Interestingly, Ray would meet the great Bunuel and tell him; “Bunuel, out of all the directors I know, you’re the only one who does what he wants. What is your secret?” To which Bunuel replied; “I ask for less than fifty thousand dollars per film”.

Ray changed the subject.

I very much enjoyed the information you shared regarding the story behind On Dangerous Ground. What would you recommend as being the best book on Nicholas Ray?

[–] Goodbye_Ruby_Tuesday 16 years ago

Bernard Eisenchitz's out-of-print biography on Ray is definitely worth seeking out. I have Geoff Andrew's analysis on all of Ray's films, but interestingly I find James Harvey's Movie Love in the Fifties, which is NOT exclusively about Ray (nor are the mentioned films even limited to the 50s), to be much more fascinating and better written. Ray's films are mentioned quite frequently and whole chapters are devoted to In a Lonely Place, Bitter Victory, Johnny Guitar and a chapter all about Ray, as well as James Dean whose definitive performance is of course Rebel Without a Cause.

I'm hoping to get Ray's memoirs pretty soon; some of what he says is deeply moving and true and honest, just like the man himself.

Ingrid Bergman, mon amour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkI4f_UrKmc

[–] cattard-1 16 years ago

.

Thanks for your reply. I'm surely getting Harvey's "Movie Love in the Fifties" in the future.

.

[–] artihcus022 16 years ago

Luis Bunuel did a far better job in depicting juvenile delinquency with his masterful “Los Olvidados” which came out a year after Knock on Any Door.

Well Los Olvidados isn't just about juvenile delinquency. That's the lesson I think Ray learnt about it, that's why his Rebel Without A Cause is not just about juvenile delinquency either. Of course Ray deliberately set out to to show delinquents in middle-class houses since he felt that in America, it was the cliche to say they just came from poor backgrounds and use that as an excuse or explanation.

SPOILERS
Los Olvidados basically attacks conventional hypocritical morality not just in terms of economics but in the notions they cherish. And unlike Neo-Realist films from Italy, Bunuel makes his kids very harsh and violent and also very complex like El Jaibo is a highly complex character not at all a "corruptor of youth" and his death scene has the grandeur of gangsters in Depression films while the good kid dies pointlessly and is cruelly disposed of.

It doesn't reduce slum kids to the level of them simply being what they are because they have no money. That's a testament to Bunuel's compassion I think. He really cared for those kids.

Interestingly, Ray would meet the great Bunuel and tell him; “Bunuel, out of all the directors I know, you’re the only one who does what he wants. What is your secret?” To which Bunuel replied; “I ask for less than fifty thousand dollars per film”.

Luis Bunuel was just about the most canny genius in film history. He made his films quickly, meticulously followed a pre-written script and was a librarian in his exactness for getting what he wanted. Of course Bunuel only got to make what he wanted from the mid-60's onwards before that in Mexico he had to work in conditions similar to Hollywood B-Directors or Hollywood studio hands, mix personal passion-work with for-hire job. Bunuel making films with his speed allowed him all the time in the world to make a lot of films. Which is a good way to approach directing.

Ray on the other hand really involved himself in all his films and each film was an emotional passion play for him. Whereas for Bunuel, it was a movie like any other movie.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] movieluvr4 16 years ago

Very well put, Goodbye Ruby Tuesday.

Laurel and Dix are amazingly well-suited for each other, a combination of toughness and vulnerability whose love will both nurture and destroy the other. Most romances in films have two people who don't deserve to be together--this usually happens in terrible, neurotic romantic comedies starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey--but they do; in this film, Laurel and Dix deserve to be together--the audience certainly wants this film to have a happy ending, to have Laurel save Dix from himself--but they can't--and don't, which is what makes the ending both so true and so unbearable.

I couldn't agree more and its this idea that Laurel and Dix deserve to be together but can't because of all that's happened between them that makes the ending so heartrending, yet realistic. Its a fantastic film!

[–] MsELLERYqueen2 12 years ago

I think that this movie is just perfect!

~~
JIM HUTTON: talented gorgeous HOT; adorable as ElleryQueen; SEXIEST ACTOR EVER

[–] modestyblaise65 12 years ago

This was definitely one of the best endings I have seen so far. I also expected more of a crime-noir, but it was a psychological one.
The last scene where she goes from panic for her life to the acceptance of the eventual death until the complete disillusion, when she says to the detective on the phone: "Yesterday it would have meant so much to us..." is fantastic! Both characters' worlds are shattered and they are devastated, but also aware that they cannot go on with their relationship. Too much was already ruined by that time. You could literally feel their pain.
After the ending scene, I found myself staring at the credits and contemplating about their fate. It all seemed inevitable and a bit sad, but that's how life is actually. At least how it should be in a film-noir;-)

[–] sage2112 8 years ago

Well he's pretty deeply flawed, but I really didn't think she was.

[–] eighteen_percent_gray 7 years ago

I just saw this last night, really great movie.

Others have said they forgot about the murder mystery. It was hanging over my head the whole time, very creepy wondering when we'd find out Dix was or was not guilty. Ending was one of the best I've ever seen.

Was her boyfriend the murderer? He was supposedly a serial killer and she dated him long enough for him to propose. So, she was on track to be murdered eventually just by the fact that she linked up.

[–] KingCobra686 7 years ago

Yeah I didnt think that the murderer reveal was much of a twist. It never really seemed like Dixon was the murderer because of the strange causual attitude he had about it, and there werent many other characters that we got to know well. I kind of just assumed that either the murderer wasnt really that big of a deal to the plot, or that it would end up being something super cheesy as an attempt at completely suprising the audience.