Why does the boy throw the money on top of Mitchum when he's being subdued by the police?
Is it because he can't bear to see the repetition of his father's capture caused by the money the boy now despises? It's certainly not out of sympathy for the preacher.
Funny, I just saw this last night and was wondering the same thing when this scene came up.
I think you got it right. He saw the preacher as his father(being arrested the same) and throwing the money back at him was what he wishes he could have done, now that he knows it only brought their family trouble.
He snapped under the pressure, suffering some break from reality, saying, "Dad, take it back!" as if were his father able to take it back, the whole chain of events would never have happened--much as Jody near the end of the book The Yearling, in a scene not in the movie, carefully builds a fluttermill, hoping to recreate a moment from before the unfolding of all the tragic events.
shareYes, he's flashing back to when his dad was taken by the police. That's why he mistakes preacher for his Dad.
That kid held it together for a long time. Considering everyone he had been through - his father jailed, his mother murdered, homeless and running from a maniac - it was only a matter of time before he lost it.
Because when the film was made the Motion Picture Production Code was still in place and the son couldn't be seen to profit from the proceeds of his father's crime.
You are dead on correct james-uk. Illogical things often happened at the end of American movies during the Code period in order to reassure audiences that the authorities’ vision of justice always occurred.
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