Liked the ending...


Very unusual but how many men would turn down a chance to walk off into the sunset with Gene Tierney!.

reply

The commentary on the special features part of the film mentioned that the ending was left ambiguous on purpose, so it doesn't necessarily mean that he was convicted. If fact, I would assume with all the evidence that he might have been found not guilty.

reply

The movie ends with his arrest. Since the death was accidental and in any case self-defense, and his subsequent actions, while outside of the law, were understandable, I would think that it's unlikely that the DA would prosecute the case. Maybe he'd take a plea on the assault on the night watchman.

reply

I thought the same thing..........

However, Dix the Detective had a history of beating and getting rough with suspects to get info. This was stated early in the film...

I bet he got "a few" years in the state pen. (where they hate cops)

But if one had Gene Tierney waiting for them, THAT ain't too bad. ;-)

So, really a bitter-sweet ending.

Loved this film. 8.5/10

reply

Mixed feelings here. I really liked that Dixon could not accept the simplified blissful ending he hadn't earned, and made the police chief read the letter. Anyone with a conscience would find his happiness poisoned by not coming clean in the circumstances, especially as Dixon's greatest desire in life clearly was NOT to land the beautiful babe, but to be an honest man, not a crook and liar like his father.

I actually disliked the syrupy handling of the romance and Gene Tierney's character. They allegedly went from first meeting to IN LOVE within thirty-six hours. I can't readily imagine the initial infatuation surviving years of trials and imprisonment if Dixon does get some well-deserved jail time for hiding the body and then trying to pin the accidental death as a murder rap on Scalisi. So a touch more doubt as to whether or not they'd end up together would have added significantly to the realism for me.

Regardless: truly great performance by Dana Andrews, arguably his best.

reply

Scalisi was a bit too smooth with the speechifying for my liking.

reply

Yes, they fell for each other much too quickly, but this is still a Hollywood production, after all.

I tend to think that Dixon would have gotten off with accidental manslaughter (is there such a charge?), but would have done some time for obstruction of justice. Ultimately, he would have been booted off the force, with or without Tierney...

reply

I hate the ending. I think is just another Hollywood Production Code mandated ending. I hate it.

reply

I agree with urbanspaceman

reply

@urbanspaceman- Production Code mandated in what way? That Andrews' character admitted to accidentally killing Stevens' character? If you follow Andrews' character through, that is what he *had to* do; he was always trying to show that he wasn't like his hood father. If he had walked away with no penalty, he would have proven what Scalisle had said, that he was just like his old man.

reply

Not sure of the semantics of the actual Code...

but when it comes to Criminal acts the simplified summation of the Hayes Code has often been that "all criminal activity must be Punished"... ie if a character kills someone it needs to be clearly justified or said character must either be arrested/or killed in turn...

as I recall the Book version of The Big Sleep was Clear that Carmen (the Younger daughter) had in fact killed someone... the Movie leaves it ambiguous to get around the code

infact Looking at the FAQs of Big Sleep you get a pretty clear picture of what the Code covered

reply

Possible spoilers--tjanssen411: You're correct that normally a character could not "get away with murder," but such was not the case in WTSE. Dixon defended himself in a scuffle with Stevens' character; the former didn't know that the latter had a steel plate in his head, so he wasn't guilty of murder. He was, I admit, guilty of obstructing justice, but that is something which could have been forgiven, so to speak, especially when he was instrumental in getting Scalise and his gang. Regarding Carmen in The Big Sleep, the move does make it sound like Eddie Mars performed the deed, and perhaps that is why the latter is taken down by his own men. One example of a killer who was not punished for his crime was Edward G. Robinson's in Scarlett Street. He clearly stabs Joan Bennett's character in a fit of rage, lets Day Duryea's character take the death penalty for it, and yet he gets away with it, or so it would seem. It appears that to get around the Code, the script has Robinson's character suffer from delusion, being forever tormented by the voices of those whose deaths he was responsible for. Just some thoughts on the subject.

reply

I have no problem with Dixon hiding the body, or trying to pin the death on Scalise. He had no intention of killing Paine; hitting him was self-defense and the death was an accident. Blaming it on Scalise was a clever way to get rid of a psychopathic gangster who managed to get away with murder. The worst thing Dixon did was allowing Morgan's father to take the rap and sit in jail for a few days. He's got a lot of explaining to do to Morgan and Jiggs, who I wouldn't blame if they never forgave him.

reply

Not that this was a great film by any stretch of the imagination but the ending ruined it for me. The Hayes code sabotages another potentially good film.

reply