WolfmanOz at the Movies #45


Great movie endings

Sometimes the ending of a movie can elevate it to another level – think of The Bridge On The River Kwai, Casablanca and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest to name a few classics.

So the following 3 selections are from lesser known films that have an outstanding ending/climax.

With the release in 1995 of the superb crime thriller The Usual Suspects it introduced the movie world a couple of new great talents in actor Kevin Spacey and writer Christopher McQarrie.

The film follows the interrogation of Roger “Verbal” Kint, a small-time crook, who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. Through narration and flashback, Kint tells the interrogator a convoluted story of events that led him and his criminal companions to the boat, and of a mysterious crime lord – known as Keyser Soze – who controlled them. 

The final revelation of who was Keyser Soze is a masterful juxtaposition of editing, sound mixing and a total surprise for the audience as to who was the mysterious master crime lord.

In 1978 saw an excellent remake of the classic science-fiction thriller Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, starring Donald Sutherland.

The updated plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect copy of the person replaced, but devoid of human emotion.

Donald Sutherland as the health inspector manages to evade being replaced and returns to work . . .

And finally, in 1971 came the release of Luchino Visconti’s haunting adaption of Thomas Mann’s classic novella Death In Venice.

The film, set at the turn of the century, stars Dirk Bogarde as composer Gustav von Aschenbach who travels to Venice for rest, due to serious health concerns. In Venice, he becomes obsessed with the stunning beauty of an adolescent boy named Tadzio, who is staying with his family at the same hotel as Achenbach.

In the climactic scene, a dying Aschenbach sees Tadzio at the beach, and to the setting of Mahler’s marvellous Adagietto from his 5th Symphony, we see him die in a scene of stunning beauty.

So, what are other great film endings/climaxes that Cat enjoyed and/or found memorable ?

Enjoy.


38 responses to “WolfmanOz at the Movies #45”

  1. Boxcar Avatar
    Boxcar

    Nothing goes past the “Last of the Mohicans”. It is a self contained mini-movie, high drama, tragedy, magnificent scenery, magnificent music.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8ZisDHg6v0

  2. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Top pick Boxcar.

  3. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    Wolf, another move with an outstanding ending is “The Conversation”, made in 1973 or 1974 directed by Francis Ford Coppola with Gene Hackman and John Cazale.

    I also liked the ending of The Others (loosely based on The Turn of the Screw).

  4. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Yes Cassie the ending of The Conversation where a paranoid Gene Hackman destroys his apartment in trying to find surveillance bugs is very memorable.

    Good suggestion re The Others a little gem of a ghost story – someone else has heard/seen it !

  5. thefrollickingmole Avatar
    thefrollickingmole

    Going to be near impossible to top the last of the Mohicans, near perfect scene.

    For a change of pace, the end of Brazil, Lam is busted out of the ministry??

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLynM-GI_Mk

  6. dopey Avatar
    dopey

    Barrie Mackenzie, 1972. Lots of blokes drinking Fosters, pissing on a fire to put it out.

  7. johanna Avatar
    johanna

    The ending of Fellini’s Satyricon is worth a mention. The film is about the decadence of the late Roman empire.

    One of the characters, the obese, ugly and very rich Trimalchio, dies. He has always been surrounded by sycophants hoping to get a few crumbs off his groaning tables, and ultimately his inheritance.

    When the will is read, he duly divides his estate between these parasites, on one condition.

    Together, they must eat his revolting corpse, or they get nothing.

    The final scene shows them all munching grimly away. As one of them says – ‘A lifetime of riches is worth a night’s indigestion.’

    One of my top five movies, BTW.

  8. calli Avatar
    calli

    For sheer sadness, the last sequence of Atonement. And directorial sleight of hand has to go to The Sixth Sense.

  9. calli Avatar
    calli

    My teenage son and I had a running joke about The Usual Suspects, a movie we watched together and both really liked.

    Keyser Soze was blamed for everything, from missing sports equipment to late trains to indelible marks on uniforms. The invisible fiend!

  10. jupes Avatar
    jupes

    What about The Sixth Sense? Hardly anyone picked it, I certainly didn’t. Watch it for the second time and it makes perfect sense. Beautifully done.

  11. jupes Avatar
    jupes

    Oh, okay Calli. You got there first.

  12. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    WolfmanOz says:
    November 17, 2022 at 12:33 pm
    Yes Cassie the ending of The Conversation where a paranoid Gene Hackman destroys his apartment in trying to find surveillance bugs is very memorable.

    Good suggestion re The Others a little gem of a ghost story – someone else has heard/seen it !

    Duh !

    I was thinking of The Other not The Others.

  13. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    I digress a little, I recently renewed my membership with Verona cinemas. I actually want to go the movies more often but there’s not a lot that interests me or entices me*, it’s slim pickings. I don’t want to go along, pay good money and then be lectured to and preached at, and I can’t stand it when they meddle with history. However, I used to frequently meet friends on a Saturday night and we’d go anf see a film, and I’d always enjoy the obligatory choc-top (only vanilla).

    Verona always has a good selection of foreign films. There’s a Danish film which I want to see – it’s called “Margrete – Queen of the North”. Apparently it’s good.

    * I did see Top Gun Maverick back earlier this year, which I loved. First Hollywood move I’d seen in years.

  14. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Likewise Cassie . . . Top Gun Maverick is the only film I’ve seen at the cinema this year – and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    I reckon there’s a market (for us older demographics) for a cinema to specialise in showing films from yesteryear (i.e. the last century).

  15. Dragnet Avatar
    Dragnet

    The ending of The Long Good Friday is remarkable, the amazing range of expressions on Bob Hoskins face as he realises what has happened and what is about to happen

  16. calli Avatar
    calli

    Wolfman, I’ll know you’re Bill Collins redux if you recommend “The Razor’s Edge”. No, not the Bill Murray one.

    I’m talking Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. 😀

  17. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Dragnet says:
    November 17, 2022 at 5:56 pm
    The ending of The Long Good Friday is remarkable, the amazing range of expressions on Bob Hoskins face as he realises what has happened and what is about to happen

    Check it out . . .
    https://youtu.be/it9WWtjvnzw

  18. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    calli says:
    November 17, 2022 at 6:09 pm
    Wolfman, I’ll know you’re Bill Collins redux if you recommend “The Razor’s Edge”. No, not the Bill Murray one.

    I’m talking Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. ?

    I was never a great fan of The Razor’s Edge (1946 version) – I thought Tyrone Power was woefully miscast as Larry Darrell.

    And I’ve not seen the Bill Murray version.

  19. calli Avatar
    calli

    Sorry, Wolfman. The Razor’s Edge was one of Mr. Movies’ most beloved films. He despised the Bill Murray version. I’ve seen it and didn’t mind it at all, even though Murray was playing…Murray.

    I mentioned my son up thread. At one stage, all he wanted to do was be a movie reviewer like Collins. To sit and watch movies all day seemed a marvellous job, and surely it was!

    Like Cassie, I would love to see really good movies at the cinema. But I won’t pay good money for garbage, particularly that funding the grotesque Hollywood sausage machine.

  20. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    Speaking of endings that aren’t straightforward, what about the ending of “Once upon a time in America”?

  21. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    Wolf and calli, the Randwick Ritz (I love the place) shows old movies.

  22. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Yes call I remember Mr Movies Bill Collins forever gushing about The Razor’s Edge – each to their own.

    Planet Of The Apes (1968) has one of the great twist endings of all-time.

    As for Once Upon A Time In America, I’m still not sure how it really ends . . .

    The Randwick Ritz sounds great . . . just a little far from Melbourne !

  23. calli Avatar
    calli

    On Planet of the Apes…I’d read enough sci-fi to think…what if the astronauts were in the future? I have to say for Sixth Sense I never thought for a moment that the principal character was …. Atonement ditto.

    So many wonderful, imaginative movies, so many stories to put on film. A shame that they spend fortunes on unwatchable dross.

    I had a look at the Ritz program, Cassie. Gallipoli in April…sigh. Another marvellous tragic final sequence.

  24. Petros Avatar
    Petros

    The ending of The Vanishing. The original Dutch version. Crikey that one stays with you.

  25. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “Petrossays:
    November 17, 2022 at 8:03 pm
    The ending of The Vanishing. The original Dutch version. Crikey that one stays with you.”

    Ah yes, I saw that film in 1990? I saw shudder at the ending.

  26. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Re The Vanishing (1988), no less a person than Stanley Kubrick thought it was the most terrifying film ever made.

    As for the American remake – awful.

  27. lotocoti Avatar
    lotocoti

    Mr Rusk, you’re not wearing your tie.

  28. Louis Litt Avatar

    THe Vanishing – remarkable
    Witness for the Proscution – For me the ebst twist ever
    Joanna – what is that French Film made in the 1960’s of the 6 or so friends who meet at a countrysie palace in France for a gastronomical week end.
    They gorge them selvs to death – The pilot with his glove was a particulare favourite.
    Cassie -with you re modern cinema – the endless attack on Chritianity, esp Catholocism and women looking and behaving like men is not my glass of tea. The writing, is usually average to poor and the themes/messages are non sensical.

  29. WolfmanOz Avatar
    WolfmanOz

    Louis Litt – the film you are referring to is La Grande Bouffe released in 1973.

    The pilot was played by the great Marcello Mastroianni.

  30. Pedro the Loafer Avatar
    Pedro the Loafer

    I am a bit late to the party here, but an all round great movie with a memorable ending is The Shawshank Redemption.

    Terrific “feel good” storyline.

  31. Christine Avatar
    Christine

    What a pleasing description of “Death in Venice”
    Beautiful film

  32. Entropy Avatar
    Entropy

    Wot about the crying game?

  33. Louis Litt Avatar

    Thants Wolfie – the pilot cracks me up – he sees a statue of a naked female, checks around the coast is clear, slips his glove off and caresses the statues smooth buttocks – hysterical
    Now you know why I do when I see a nude female statue.
    Oh the horror,the horror

  34. Fair Shake Avatar
    Fair Shake

    National Lampoons Vacation. The epic human journey across a continent. Ending with the tragic scene of Wally World closed for maintenance as advised by the haunting moose out front.

  35. vlad redux Avatar
    vlad redux

    The final shot of PSYCHO. I won’t spoil it.

  36. Louis Litt Avatar

    Death in Venice – at the time I was non plussed.
    Now I find it disturbing.
    No need for it

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