Agatha Christie adapted her own novel as a play, and gave it a “happy” ending (maybe the same one as the movie—I don’t remember).
The Paul Newman version of Sweet Bird of Youth. The play is not a romance. It is a tragedy. The lead character is charming, but he is a jerk. He makes one bad choice after another, leading almost inevitably to his assault at the hands of Boss Finley’s goon squad.
Tennessee Williams wrote four different endings to the play. He gave theater companies a choice of how much doom and despair they wanted to inflict on an audience. Two of the endings were dark, two were (relatively) upbeat. The Broadway production went with the darkest ending, in which the hero gets castrated.
In 1962, Hollywood obviously could not do that. But, rather than use any of the author’s options, they tacked on an ending in which he escapes, miraculously uninjured, and skips town with Boss Finley’s daughter. You ruin the woman’s life, then you and she run off and live happily ever after. Right.
That ticked me off, and I don’t even like Tennessee Williams.
Robot_Arm is correct. Terry Gilliam supervised the edit that was eventually released in the US, although it was 10 minutes shorter than his original edit, the ending was intact.
By the way, Gilliam argues it is a happy ending, because Sam is beyond the toturers’ reach, and he’s happy.
It’s one of my favorite film endings, because I like to think about how much of the film is “real” vs how much is told through Sam’s tortured-brain imagery. My own theory is that the final moment of the film is the only bit from outside Sam’s brain.
On seeing the topic, my first thought was Blade Runner. Ruined not just by the happy ending, but by the pedantic voiceover.
That is Sin Sheinberg’s “Love Conquers All” version that was shown (I believe only once) on American network television. He was able to do this because although Terry Gilliam had final cut authority over the editing, Universal has the power to set the running length of film to an arbitrarily low figure. It isn’t clear whether Sheinberg didn’t understand the themes of the movie or, perhaps, did understand them and felt mocked, but after Gilliam resisted taking any notes Sheinberg pulled contactual strings and refused to release Gilliam’s edit because it didn’t meet the running time restriction he placed on it. Sheinberg personally worked on his own edit with many scenes assembled from otherwise unused footage (hence, there are a bunch of parts of scenes in this version that aren’t in the cinematic release, often out of order and out of context) and a ‘happy’ ending that makes absolutely no sense. Gilliam published a full page ad in Variety to publicize the feud and put pressure on Sheinberg, and then ‘illegally’ screened the movie for a handful of critics who sung praises of it, forcing Universal to release it (with slightly different cuts for the US and European versions, plus a different edit for the US pan & scan on that cuts out. some of the torture scenes). Great movie that is. almost a synecdoche for the process of getting a movie through the movie industry process.
My pick is John McTiernan’s remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, which I would argue is superior to (or at least more entertaining than) the original Norman Jewison version but the studio didn’t like the ‘downer’ ending that McTiernan filmed (which was similar to the original) and instead forced a totally senseless happy ending to the movie.
Stranger
Contact was not ruined by a happy ending but it was ruined by closure.
I rewatched Contact earlier this year and it struck me as just how ham-fisted the entire movie is. It lacks much subtly and is probably the ripest example of someone deciding that Ellie should be played by a Jodie Foster-type actress and then hiring Jodie Foster to do her most exaggerated performance of herself playing a character. It has garnered a lot of kudos for being based on the Carl Sagan novel and produced by Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyen, but it really is a sort of paint-by-the-numbers movie with an ending that reads like a rejected pitch for a Twilight Zone episode. Which is a shame because I’d really like to see a good version of an alien contact film that doesn’t involve alien invaders or things blowing up, but this was not it.
Stranger
As I remember, Gilliam had deals with two different companies to distribute Brazil, Universal in the U.S., and a different studio for everywhere else. And the contract with Universal did have a maximum running time. All of that was in place before filming even began. Then, while the movie was being made, Sid Sheinberg became head of Universal. When Brazil was eventually delivered to Universal, Sheinberg either hated it personally, thought it wasn’t commercial, or just didn’t want a project begun by his predecessor to be successful (I’m not sure anyone knows which of those is the case). The final film was longer than Gilliam had agreed to in his contract, and Sheinberg used that to try to get Gilliam to make huge changes, like a happy ending. Gilliam didn’t want to change anything, and the fight was on.
Eventually, Gilliam did cut the running time a bit and get the film released in the U.S., but the studio did very little publicity and advertising, and it wasn’t a success.
There’s a great book on the subject called The Battle of Brazil. I think there was also a DVD release that included all three versions, and a lot of extra material.
I haven’t watched the movie version, but the original story was about the time paradoxes that foreknowledge of the future creates. The issuing of the prediction that the protagonist will murder someone ends up causing it, while his gaining access to the minority report, which originally predicted he wouldn’t, ends up changing the entire motivation for why the killing takes place. In the new version the protagonist commits a justified killing rather than murder. But at the end although cleared of criminal liability, the protagonist is politically in hot water because he has demonstrated a flaw in the entire system of precog crime prevention, and ends up having to resign.
The Mind Reader (1933) – Warren William grifts until the lame, cop-out “now that I’m in jail, I’ve reformed!” ending.
Outcast (1937) – After Warren William is saved from a small-town mob lynching, the mood turns cheerful and lighthearted before an abrupt ending, totally destroying the tension and drama that was so carefully built up.
Suspicion (1941) – One Hitchcock’s worst films can’t overcome the fatally unconvincing (mis)casting of the lead. Cary Grant seems like he’s a murderer and acts totally insane during the senseless climax where his reckless driving imperils Joan Fontaine, but it’s okay, he’s not really a bad guy. The end.
The Lost Weekend (1945) – A writer who has proven repeatedly he can’t lick alcohol suddenly decides he’s licked alcohol. One of the most unconvincing “happy endings” ever and I don’t believe it was meant to be ironic.
Gilda (1946) – Classic cop-out finale lets Glenn Ford and the peerless Rita off with a happy end despite the fact they’ve both been total shits.
Yellow Sky (1948) – Bank robbers led by stinky Gregory Peck menace a grizzled miner and his tomboy granddaughter Anne Baxter, threatening to steal all the gold they’ve secretly mined. Peck tries to rape Baxter before ultimately - and very unconvincingly – turning cleaned-up good guy at the happy end. Remade as The Jackals (1967) with the same dumb ending.
Susana (1951) – Producer-imposed happy end taints this otherwise interesting Buñuel film about the impact of a disturbed girl’s behavior on a family.
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster (1971) – Well…I liked Hedora and wanted to see him survive (although his spirit has certainly survived in the form of increased global pollution) so the end was kinda too sad for me. I guess I’m just a tad nostalgic when it comes to some kaiju.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) – One of the worst endings ever, and not because it may have been misunderstood, but because of the unnecessary, jaw-dropping, embarrassed-laugh-inducing tonal break it marks from the rest of the film and its wretchedly wish-affirming BS – i.e., yet another saccharine Hollywood metaphor for death. This was effectively Spielberg pissing on the material to mark his cinematic territory from Kube’s.
Other Peoples Money.
Jorgy was a stupid, stubborn asshole who deserved to lose his business. He should have listened to Kate in the beginning and reincorporated in Delaware. Larry the Liquidator was right that the company was dead and share holders were better off voting for his slate.
But can’t have a dumb old man get his just desserts or tell the truth about the quick and the dead aspect of business. Better have a rainbows and puppy dogs ending instead.
When the ads for the remake showed him waking up in the box, I knew they’d screwed it up without even watching the movie.
I watched Brazil when it came out and really liked it. In Germany, '85 or '86.
What the hell have you in the USA been seeing? I did not know that someone had spoiled that magnificent movie with a happy ending. There is some research here to do for me.
Will I see the same movie today if I watch it again? Were can I watch it? Hmmm… I bet not on Netflix.
I haven’t read the book, but isn’t the book ending of The Natural 180 degrees opposite the film? I suppose if you were a fan of the book, you’d hate the happy ending of the film.
Me? Well Mr. Malamud, the film was better. 
The US version did not have a studio-imposed happy ending. Unless maybe you watched it over broadcast TV, a long time ago. I’m in the US, I’ve seen it many times, and it has always had the same Terry-Gilliam-created ending. (With the torturers giving up because Sam is in his own happy world.). True on VHS, DVD, and cable channels I’ve seen it on. The other ending is presumably just a sort of historical footnote. Gilliam won.
District 9’s ending I would describe as bittersweet–sure it is happy Christopher manages to get the mothership to leave Earth but leaves Wikus behind full transformed into an alien. And it is open ended whether Christopher will be able to return save Wikus.
Yes, the endings are opposites.
I read the book before the movie came out and wondered how the book’s ending would be received by a general audience. I liked both endings of The Natural, but prefer the book’s.
How about, not to thread-Jack, but a polar opposite example, just for fun: a movie improved by a darker ending. This is the only example of that I can think of:
Stephen King’s short story / novelette ‘The Mist’ was a nice sci-fi horror in which scientists opened a portal to a parallel dimension that unleashed a monster-carrying mist that devastated the Maine town nearby. Never good with landing endings, King ended the story with the main character, his son, and some others in a car driving, trying to pick up some other human transmissions on the radio when they hear in the static one word that sounds like “hope”.
The movie sticks close to the plot of the story until the end: the protagonist, his son and some other characters are trying to drive out of the mist, until they run out of gas. Protagonist takes gun and shoots everybody in the head to save them from horrible agonizing monster deaths, including his son, but he’s one bullet short of killing himself. So he goes out into the mist to let the monsters tear him apart, except the mist starts to clear, the army is cleaning up straggler monsters, and survivors are being transported to safety. Gut-punch realization that if he had just waited a couple more minutes…
The novel Hannibal had a provocative ending, ruminating on:
- What, if anything, causes evil;
- How institutions like the DOJ can get away with things as bad as Lecter ever did;
- Similarities between Lecter and Starling;
The movie managed to settle for ending that was simultaneously dumbed down, confusing, and unsatisfying.
“Hurray for Hollywood”!
The last Samurai (2003): The end narration works well to leave things ambiguous as to what happened after the main character presented the sword to emperor and it could have simply ended there. Instead they had to add a shot of him triumphantly (well kind of) uniting with his new love.
//i\\
What is it specifically that you object to? Because it’s certainly common for people to object to the present-day-cemetery-framing-device, which I don’t mind at all.