MovieChat Forums > Night and the City (1950) Discussion > Problem with ending

Problem with ending

posted 16 years ago by mandrake62
18 replies | jump to latest

This is one of my favorites but I am haunted by the weakness in the script at the end. Mary finds Fabian on Molly's barge before all of Kristos thugs. How did she know where he was? Also, Adam shows up with a police unit shortly afterwards. How did he know where to direct them?

I wonder if the weakness happened on the editing floor. The rest of the script is just too good for such an oversight.

Here is a possible solution:

After Fabian takes refugee on Anna's barge he hears her talking to someone on the phone saying "he is here now, hurry". He thinks she has betrayed him as did Figler. But he is just too tired to react and accepts that it as his fate to be betrayed. The call is actually to Mary. Adam is with her when she receives it. She goes to the barge and Adam goes for the police. This would account for her showing up at the barge the way she did and Adam coming shortly after in a police car. She appeared at the barge entrance as though she knew harry was there. Not like someone who had been looking for him in every rat hole in London. .

I know on the DVD there is a sequence from the British version (which was not in the US version) in which Kristo's lawyer and thug come to Mary's place looking for Fabian. Adam is there as well. This alerts Mary and Adam that Fabian is a hunted man but it is not enough to explain how Mary is able to find Fabian before the rest of them.

[–] Noir-It-All 16 years ago

I wrote about this, too.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042788/board/flat/30695428

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

[–] mandrake62 16 years ago

Reading the book the film is based on is no help. The script of Night and the City is a very free adaption. For instance, There is no Kristo in the book. After seeing the film, the author, Gerald Kersh, commented that he was paid more per word for movie rights than any other author since they only used the title.

It would have been nice to ask Dassin about the problem with the final scenes but now, sadly, he is gone.

[–] jets83 16 years ago

"Mary finds Fabian on Molly's barge before all of Kristos thugs. How did she know where he was?"

She probably knew all his hot spots and where he does business. She stated she looked everywhere.

[–] mandrake62 16 years ago

He wasn't "doing business", he was running and hiding from Kristo's thugs and associates. There is no reason for Mary to start there. That she shows up the way she did is the problem.

[–] tomganz90 16 years ago

One of the special features on the Criterion Collection edition of this film explains this, and the scene did wind up on the cutting room floor--in America. The scene containing the explanation was retained in Britain. The British version also had a completely different score, by Benjamin Frankel rather than the American version scored by Franz Waxman. The Criterion DVD also includes two interviews with Jules Dassin, one done shortly before he died, and one conducted in the 60s or 70s for French television. Both of them are fascinating and illuminating.

[–] mandrake62 16 years ago

The cut scene only shows she found out Harry was in trouble and she and Adam went looking for him. It does not explain how she found him. It also creates the additional problem of why Adam showed up separately with the police. He was very protective of Mary and would not have gone for the police separately unless he knew where to bring them.

We needed that phone call from Anna to Mary to make it work.

The interviews with Dassin were wonderful. His humanity and decency comes through as well as his artistic genius. So many of his best years were spent in the wasteland of the "Blacklist". It makes a total mockery of the HUAC activities. I was also interested in that he said Zanuck did to try to help him and Gene Tierney as well. Not such a monster after all.

[–] jeff_bailey44 16 years ago

I was impressed with Zanuck's benevolence also. It helped explain why Tierney was given basically a throwaway part in the film.

[–] Thrift_Store_Junkie05 15 years ago

What's wrong with just using your imagination? Sure, the ending could've had a far more ambitious and realistic climax, however, at the end, it doesn't really matter how Gene Tierney's character was able to locate Harry's whereabouts -- Harry had finally gotten what was coming to him.

"I hope I never get so old I get religious." Ingmar Bergman

[–] mandrake62 14 years ago

Yes, it does matter!!! How she found him when all of Critos' goons couldn't find him is not accounted for. It was a weakness in a near perfect film that could have easily been fixed.

[–] agera 14 years ago

"How she found him when all of Critos' goons couldn't find him is not accounted for."

Woman's intuition.

[–] Noir-It-All 14 years ago

The goons were goons. They may not have known Harry that well.

The British version showed a conversation bw Adam nd Mary, listing Harry's haunts.
This came after a scene where Mr. Yosh had a couple of lines!

"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] mandrake62 14 years ago

If you read my OP, it should be obvious even to you that I watched the ending very closely. I was a little disappointed that such a strong well constructed script with every action well motivated and accounted should have such a weakness. The British release had an additional scene that mitigated the problem but did not entirely solve it.

Good point about the thugs being right there waiting for him and the strangler coming out of nowhere. That is not accounted for either. You have unintentionally expanded my original point. And of course Adam pulling up with the police is totally unaccounted for as well. It is almost like they are in such a hurry to wrap up the film they leave all these loose ends. Also, accounting for every little loose end could make a film a bit tedious just as this post is becoming a bit tedious. However, in this case, a 10 second scene would have wrapped all the loose ends indicated in this thread.

[–] Nerd_in_Norway 11 years ago

I don't get why you should waste so much energy on THIS of all scenes in motion pictures. According to Mary we could easily assume she - like everyone else - had already been to all of Harry's regular spots and the fact that she happens to finally find him at one of them BEFORE Kristo is IN NO WAY unrealistic. Stuff like that happens every day all over the world, people looking for loved ones in trouble and finding them because they know each other. You seem to totally ignore this fact: the character of Mary KNEW Harry - INTIMATELY.

As we know everyone ended up at the same spot towards the end: Harry ended up at Anne's after being chased everywhere, Mary was searching for Harry and also ended up there, Adam/police who was chasing Mary also ended up there, not to mention Kristo & co who had the entire city chasing Harry ALSO ended up at Anne's.

So basically we have a situation of EVERYONE chasing Harry, and EVERYONE ending up at the same place. This is hardly the first time in world history that people who are chasing someone all end up at the same finish line.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] mandrake62 11 years ago

Didn't realize Anna's barge was so popular and was one of Harry's haunts. Sort of like Rick's in Casablanca, everyone goes there. Actually, I don't think so.

Coincidences is a weak tool for plotting and should be upgraded with motivation. In this case, some shared information would help.

Fabian hears Anna calling someone and thinks she too is calling Kristo to get the reward. But he is too tired to run anywmore and sits there's resigned to being betrayed. Actually, Anna is calling Mary. Adam is with here when she gets the call, he tries to stop her. When she leaves he goes for the police. Mary is followed by one Kristo's goons to the barge and it all comes together.
The British version had some of this in it when Mr. Yosh and the soliciter visit Mary and Adam looking for Fabian. If Anna's call came soon before or after the Yosh visit, everything about the final scene would be accounted for.

[–] franzkabuki 9 years ago

I don't care how Tierney got there, but her visit sure gave things a late melodramatic touch that wasn't called for (especially as her character had been largely neglected in the movie otherwise). A defeated Widmark smoking a cigarette and looking out over the river with Lom's goons closing in should have been enough to finish this one off. The very last image of Lom was great though.

"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

[–] KutWrite (1220) 6 years ago

The cut scene does explain enough. In it Mary and Adam decide to split Harry's known hangouts & they'll meet up, I believe they say "at the docks."

So it was the last place Mary was checking and when Adam was done with his half, he would meet her there. By process of deduction, Harry would have to be there so he brought the cops... or just encountered them on the way. After all, there was a big toss-up all over London with all the stoolies and "usual suspects" looking for Harry. Some cop or another would've put two and two together, right?

I like to allow fof some coincidence and even plot holes. Life isn't cut & dried, and I enjoy using my imagination - even to think how I might've written the film.

In any case, I'm sure there were "codes" which require each murder to be accounted for and all bad guys to have a comeuppance, plus the good girl has to end with the good guy - unlike real life where they go for the "bad boys!"