...throw off the cliff?
...why thank you ever so, I never buy insurance. - Lorelei Lee
A discarded pack of smokes.
This is an interesting observation when you consider that she didn't smoke or drink. And that she feinted the desire to drink right before she drove the car off of the cliff .
What does it mean really? I haven't a clue.
It was an empty cigarette packet. Robert Mitchum's character is always smoking throughout the movie. She discards the pack, like she will do with the lives of others, including her own, ultimately.
shareThey kept showing Frank with a pack of cigarettes so I think it was a hint at what was going through her mind - the cigarettes represented him and she was going to take him over the cliff if she ever got the chance.
shareThe cigarettes were a foreshadowing device. They showed how Diane was plotting to kill her stepmother and they introduced the audience to the idea that Frank would go over the cliff, too, one day. I don't think that the symbolism of cigarettes/Frank was indicative of Diane's thoughts, though. At the time that she threw the cigarettes over the cliff, she loved him and had no intention of hurting him. Diane's motivation to hurt Frank came much later in the movie.
shareThey kept showing Frank with a pack of cigarettes so I think it was a hint at what was going through her mind - the cigarettes represented him and she was going to take him over the cliff if she ever got the chance.That's a stretch. Diane just picked up whatever was available. She was trying to see how something would fall off the side of the cliff. At that point, she is planning someone's demise but the only victim on her mind was Catherine. She had no plans to kill anyone else; not her father, obviously, and not Frank or herself.
I noticed it was an empty packet of cigarettes. I thought she was planning something at that point to incriminate the Robert Mitchum character. But of course that is dispelled later in the film. I think it was just a little incident that was included to get the viewer wondering what was going on in Diane's mind at this point of the film.
shareI thought she was planning something at that point to incriminate the Robert Mitchum character.
Initially I think Diane's plan was to convince Frank that Catherine was a horrible person who was trying to kill her. Frank, ever the protector, would step in and murder Catherine. Diane would, at last, have her father to herself and Frank would suffer whatever consequences went with killing Catherine.
When Frank saw through her plan, I think she did plan to incriminate him. Again, it wouldn't serve her objective to be sitting behind bars. Frank would take the wrap and she would have her father.
When her father was unintentionally killed, Diane felt pangs of guilt and tried to shield Frank from any blame. For a time she didn't care what happened to herself she just wanted to shield Frank from blame but after they were married and acquitted she thought he would be ever grateful and stick by her side; especially if Mary refused to take him back.
Diane had serious dependency issues. When her mother died she was young; probably felt abandoned. She clung to her father and found safety and comfort in their relationship. When Catherine came along she felt abandoned again. Diane's kind of love is possessive, excessive, and obsessive.
In her twisted mind she may actually have thought she was doing Frank a favor. He was going off to Mexico alone. Something she could never have imagined or tolerated. She figured she loved him and in death they could be together; hence the champagne. Crazy people are illogical thinkers so they simply react.
Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]