MovieChat Forums > Summer and Smoke (1962) Discussion > A Few Questions about the ending

A Few Questions about the ending

posted 16 years ago by Mikel3
10 replies | jump to latest

Just saw this film for the first time on TCM. I had never seen or read the play. I was very impressed by the film.

I just have a few questions about the ending.

Was Alma addicted to those pills John had given her to take? He had warned when he fist gave them to her that he didn't want her to become a drug addict and to use them sparingly. After his initial warning why did John (the new "improved" John that is) so readily give her a refill for the pills near the end of the film? He must have noticed she was using them too much and was becoming reliant on them. Why did he not heed his own earlier warnings and continue prescribing them?

The way Elma offered one of the pills to the salesman showed me how reckless she had become with them. Use of the pills seemed to be an allegory (not entirely happy with using that word here) for her expressing here sexuality and sharing her desires like sharing the pills.

Do you suppose her becoming addicted (if she was) to the pills had something to do with her change at the end? Where do you think her character was headed in the future? I thought she was going to explore her desires and might be headed for a life of drug addition and flings. Or maybe I'm being to simplistic about the ending.

MikEl

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Mikel3 16 years ago

Well said, Joyceday. Thanks for your thoughts.

Yes, at least Alma was taking a shot at life rather than just hiding in her room and crying over her lost love.

You said: "When she turns away from the angel statue in the park she knows exactly what that night is going to be.." I had not thought about the symbolism of that statue. Alma turning away from it was like turning away from her old life and it's religious bounds.

At least the Alma in the rewritten play you mentioned 'Eccentricities of a Nightingale' would, as you pointed out, have something. I can only go by what you explained since I am not familiar with that version. But at least in it she had that one night with the man she had truly loved (John). The Alma of this movie version does not even have that one night to look back on to sustain herself. All she has is the regrets for having stopped his advances on that night she almost made love to him. And those regrets might grow sadder still to live with in the years to come.

MikEl

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] wtl471629 16 years ago

To me that was also a minor flaw in the plot. John knew how her father felt about him. He should have had some doubt about what he told him even after the father told him she didn't want to see him and lied to his daugthter and she closed the blinds on him. I think John would have persued this and seeing as they were neighbors in a small town it wouldn't have been difficult.

[–] BuffySummers-2 14 years ago

To me that was also a minor flaw in the plot. John knew how her father felt about him. He should have had some doubt about what he told him... I think John would have perused (her) ...

You are correct that this was a flaw in the plot. But actually, it was a flaw in the movie. This is not what happened in the play.

In the play, we are told by Nellie in Part Two, Scene Ten that Alma is the one who refused to see John (IMHO out of guilt for setting in motion the chain of events that lead to the death of John's father). Nellie (along with Mrs. Bassett) is the character in this play who we can trust to tell us accurate information about Alma. Nellie tells Alma that John had made numerous attempts to see her in the months that had passed since his father's death (it is now winter). Alma had actively avoided him and anyone else (rarely leaving the house) for several months. Nellie states that Alma had hurt John's feelings by refusing to see him. It is strongly implied that if she had seen him he would not have become involved with Nellie.

Forever obsessed with Alma,
Juror #8

[–] gladiola74 12 years ago

"Where do you think her character was headed in the future?".

Well, if you've read or seen the excellent film adaptation of "A Streetcar Named Desire", also by Tennesse Williams, what is going to happen to Alma is foreshadowed at the end of play.

At the last scene, we see Alma picking strangers, traveling salesmen, as Nellie's mother (Alma said so to John Buchanan at the beginning, before the fireworks in July 4th). And now that her heart has broken, she's interested in the dynamics of the body. So, she farewell the "eternity angel" and begin a loose bewildered life, just like Blanche Dubois ("A Streetcar named Desire"), with all kind of men, to survive the pain of her lost soul before her final collapse.

[–] !!!deleted!!! (5085627) 10 years ago

Simply put, after losing her chance to physically consummate her feelings with the (unrequited) love of her life, the devilishly desirable John, Alma no longer cared about remaining chaste and soul-centered, so she decided to act on the wants and needs of her body with the first man who came along, the salesman. The salesman became a sexual substitute for John, but only the first of many to come (pun intended). Being sexually repressed had brought Alma only misery, loneliness, and frustration, so after John physically rejected her just when she was ready to finally surrender to his anatomical charms, Alma thought to herself, "to hell with the soul, where do I catch the next train to Bonertown?!"

[–] 10 years ago

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[–] Popcorngal (4345) 6 years ago

Wow that is how the movie ended? Wasn't Nellie the young girl who went to boarding school and wanted John to tell her about "the facts of life" earlier in the movie? I had a faulty DVD when I watched it yesterday, and had to order another copy from the library. Great film.

[–] CharlotteXavier (2357) 5 years ago

She had become a fallen woman. In the words of my lady Eng. Lit. teach: “There is no synonym for the word slut.”

Alma had become a slut. Nowadays it’s endearing. Back then it meant ruin for a woman, especially a single woman.

Alma and Johnny both did 180’s in opposite directions after the death of John’s father.