# Changed to a Happy Ending **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686 "2015-03-10T13:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/141 "2015-03-13T20:23:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In the movie (the 1959 version)The final scene shows the submarine heading back to America so the crew can die at home. Moira is last seen watching the sub depart (with her lover on board) from a cliff overlooking the harbor. > In the novelThe crew has no plan to go back to America. They just sail the sub out to sea so they can sink it and drown. In the last scene with Martha she’s taken her suicide pills and is waiting to die as she watches the sub sail away. Criminey! It is more depressing. There is still time! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/142 "2015-03-14T00:37:07Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Oh, don’t get me started on _Frankenstein_. It’s a classic film with a truly iconic Monster, but its departures from the novel are so extreme that it’s a completely different work. It didn’t help that it was rewritten by at least four different hands (at four different times) from a stage adaptation of the original novel. I have a pilot of a Frankenstein TV series with an even odder happy ending at the beginning. The show begins with Frankenstein punching out the Monster. He then continues with his experiments. The screenplay was written by the Kuttners, and was better than the beginning would lead you to believe. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/143 "2015-03-14T01:04:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I have a pilot of a Frankenstein TV series with an even odder happy ending at the beginning. The show begins with Frankenstein punching out the Monster. He then continues with his experiments. > > The screenplay was written by the Kuttners, and was better than the beginning would lead you to believe. think you mean _Tales of Frankernstein_, which was proposed as a TV series in the 1950s, directed by the ubiquitous Curt Siodmak and written by Henry Kuttner and Catherine L. Moore. I’ve seen it, too, and have it on DVD. In fact it’s on YouTube: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToUCkdWrk-s) I don’t recall it quite as you describe it. The imdb gives this synopsis: > [@](#): > > In this pilot for a series that was never picked up, Dr. Frankenstein has just finished rebuilding his creation, but the monster is unresponsive. He needs to try something different to make it work, perhaps some new parts. Enter a terminally ill sculptor and his assertive wife… > **[Tales of Frankenstein (TV Movie 1958) - Plot - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247751/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl)** > > Tales of Frankenstein (TV Movie 1958) - Plot summary, synopsis, and more... ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/144 "2015-03-14T03:42:04Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > That would’ve made for a 'way more interesting movie! > > [Scottie Pippen - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottie_Pippen) > [Pippin Took - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrin_Took) And [for an even more interesting movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepin_the_Short) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/145 "2015-03-14T17:51:47Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > The Handmaid’s Tale. They gave a happy ending to the movie version: Offred slits the Commander’s throat; then escapes with the rebels. The movie ends with her hiding in a isolated trailer in the mountains. I have got to admit I had certain visceral enjoyment of that ending (Yeah! at least one of the bad guys got part of what he deserved), but at the same time the book was so much more than that. The book ending though ambiguous was better in more profound ways. Did Atwood ever explain why the Eeeeeevil maniacs of Gilead didn’t conquer Canada? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/146 "2015-03-14T18:47:38Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Remember, the movie was SUPPOSED to parallel the opera _ **Madama Buitterfly** _! Michael Douglas was supposed to be like Pinkerton, who callously impregnated Cio Cio San, and drove her to suicide. > > If Glenn Close DOESN’T commit suicide, what was the point of the whole opera theme? Any version where Cio Cio San dies is a happy ending as far as I’m concerned. Sheesh. Some people _should_ have low self-esteem. I hate that opera. > [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > The book [_Wicked_], to me, was nearly unreadable. I gave up halfway through (didn’t even get that far with Maguire’s treatment of Cinderella). I read the summary on Wikipedia. This makes me think: does anyone else find the film ending of _The Wizard of Oz_ a downer compared to the book? It seems a lot happier to me that Oz is a real place, and no one has to learn any lessons. Also, it takes some mental gymnastics to figure out that Toto is no longer under sentence of death in the movie.\* > [@Bill\_Door](#): > > I just looked this up on IMDB because the 1939 _Of mice and Men_ popped up on my DVR and I noted he was billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. The biography on IMDB claims it was 1935, five years after his father’s death that a producer insisted on him changing his billing to Lon Chaney, Jr. Really? I was going by memory, and I have seen few Creighton Chaney/LC,jr. movies that weren’t Universal monster movies, and I’m just sure I’ve seen “Creighton Chaney” on the screen-- in fact, I was pretty sure I saw it literally on a screen, and I’ve seen _Of Mice and Men_ in a theater. Oh well-- maybe that one mummy movie where he isn’t the mummy he’s billed as Creighton Chaney. > [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Happy ending? > I saw this movie when I was a kid: my Dad took me to the movies. I had seen one poignant scene in particular long before the ending: a man with no legs pleading for help. > As for the deathbed scene, with the elder Chaney formally presenting his makeup case to his son… the general tone of the movie caught me; I started to cry as the dying man wrote “JR.” on the case. > I was only 8 when I saw this. ☹ It’s “happy,” because in reality, Chaney didn’t want his son to go into films-- was dead-set against it, in spite of the fact that it was what Creighton wanted. Chaney insisted that Creighton go to plumber’s school so he’d have a trade. Creighton had to wait until after his father’s death before entering the film industry in order to avoid a rift in their relationship. The fact that Chaney is giving his blessing not only to Creighton’s career in films, but also the use of the name “Lon Chaney, jr.” is the fake happy ending. Albeit, considering that “Creighton” was the maiden name of Chaney’s first wife, who he ended up, umm, nisht so much liking, maybe the name change he wouldn’t have objected to. > [@Telemark](#): > > No mention of Breakfast at Tiffany’s yet? The book was fairly ambiguous, so you can’t say just how sad it was, but the movie clearly went for happy. That’s regardless of all the other changes in the movie. I don’t know anyone who read the book first, who went on to like the movie. It’s just sad to me that this movie was made, Audrey Hepburn notwithstanding. > [@astorian](#): > > Did Atwood ever explain why the Eeeeeevil maniacs of Gilead didn’t conquer Canada? Canada defeated them with superior healthcare? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/147 "2015-03-14T19:05:29Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > This makes me think: does anyone else find the film ending of _The Wizard of Oz_ a downer compared to the book? “I was the only kid in the audience that didn’t understand why Dorothy would ever want to go home. It was a mystery to me. To that awful black and white farm with that aunt who was dressed badly with smelly farm animals around, when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn’t get it.” - John Waters ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/148 "2015-03-14T19:27:27Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > “I was the only kid in the audience that didn’t understand why Dorothy would ever want to go home. It was a mystery to me. To that awful black and white farm with that aunt who was dressed badly with smelly farm animals around, when she could live with winged monkeys and magic shoes and gay lions. I didn’t get it.” - John Waters John Waters needs to read the books.Dorothy eventually does go back to live in Oz permanently, and so do Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, and the Wizard, too, and he learns to do some real magic so he isn’t a humbug anymore.I loved those books so much when I was a kid. I had big, hardback editions of them all, with the original illustrations, and I read and reread them. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/149 "2015-03-14T19:59:28Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Did Atwood ever explain why the Eeeeeevil maniacs of Gilead didn’t conquer Canada? If she has I don’t remember. I do remember the book ends with a panel of historians discussing Gilead society at a conference much the same way we currently discuss and debate the society of the Aztecs or the Soviet which is interesting since the Soviets were still fairly strong at the time the book was published. One of the speakers at the conference is described as being from Nunnavit (currently a province of Canada), so apparently Canada or parts of it at least survived better than the United States when Gilead arose. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/150 "2015-03-14T20:57:26Z")
PDQ Bach’s opera (in one unnatural act) Hansel and Gretel and Ted and Alice, ends, like all proper operas, with the entire cast lying dead on the stage. After which, they all, with no explanation, jump to their feet and sing the upbeat song, “Happy Ending!” ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/151 "2015-03-14T21:31:33Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > One of the speakers at the conference is described as being from Nunnavit (currently a province of Canada), so apparently Canada or parts of it at least survived better than the United States when Gilead arose. Because they would have Nunnavit! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! Actually, the reason is probably because Margaret Atwood is Canadian. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686.md?page=7)