MovieChat Forums > The Wind and the Lion (1975) Discussion > A great movie, a terrible ending

A great movie, a terrible ending

posted 15 years ago by dragmio
3 replies | jump to latest

After telling, or rather showing, the truth (or if it "weren't the truth it should have been" - BTW anyone really thinks John Houston only acted in this one?) Mr. Milius decided to end his film with a big battle. But between whom? He has made us so sympathetic to the main "bad" guy. It's true he portrayed president Teddy as being more like the Sultan, and less like Raisuli, but we can't have Americans lose the battle, now can we?

Hey, the Germans were there too! Of course! It's all their fault! They're the bad guys, naturally! Let's wipe out the *beep* Let's team with our good friends the Arabs!

Oh well, I can't blame him in fact. To paraphrase another American president, you can't tell the truth all the time, especially not at the end of a Hollywood movie. After all it was a standard practice long before there was a single barn in L.A., let alone a film studio.

You can be subversive all you want, and disclose the true face of the powers that be throughout your work of fiction, if you end it in a standard and approved way. But why so sudden and lame twist/reversal? Maybe it's the best way to show where you truly stand.

[–] Hancock_the_Superb 15 years ago

It's true he portrayed president Teddy as being more like the Sultan, and less like Raisuli,

How do you mean? If anything I'd argue the opposite. I also wouldn't say Raisuli was intended to be a bad guy at all. If you're arguing otherwise I think you missed a big part of what the film was trying to say.

I think we're in basic agreement over the ending, which I found horribly contrived and borderline insulting. It might have been better if there had been a battle between the Arabs and Americans, thus the audience wouldn't be sure where to throw their sympathies or who would win. (Although that would kind of undermine the main point of the movie - namely, that Raisuli and the Americans have more in common than the crooked Sultan and Bashaw and the perfidious Europeans.) Worst than that, Milius should have come up with a better conclusion than Eden and her children forcing the Marines into a suicidal showdown at gunpoint.

As a parenthetical note, though, I think Milius must have a personal problem with Germans, which is pretty much the only explanation why they are the bad guys at the end and not the French. If you've seen Rough Riders, he has German military advisors fighting alongside the Spanish at San Juan Hill, a complete invention, and has one of them captured, forced at gunpoint to instruct the Americans in the use of their Maxim guns, and then executed in cold blood.

Let's kick some ICE!

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Stratego 9 years ago

Hey, the Germans were there too! Of course! It's all their fault! They're the bad guys, naturally! Let's wipe out the *beep* Let's team with our good friends the Arabs!

Yeah, and let's turn them into a bunch of angrily shouting fools as well. It makes them that much easier to beat. Honestly, I don't get why they were the bad guys as opposed to every other Western nation who were present there with imperialistic motives.