Criminey! It is more depressing.
There is still time!
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:
I don’t recall it quite as you describe it. The imdb gives this synopsis:
Did Atwood ever explain why the Eeeeeevil maniacs of Gilead didn’t conquer Canada?
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.
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.*
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.
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.
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.
Canada defeated them with superior healthcare?
“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.
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.
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!”
Because they would have Nunnavit! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
Actually, the reason is probably because Margaret Atwood is Canadian.