You beat me to it with The Crying Game. I think, as Thudlow_Boink said earlier, that’s the one thing that everyone knows about The Crying Game. I did see it, I already knew about the twist… but I’ll be darned if I can remember any part of the movie other than that.
I saw that “twist” coming-- ditto for The Sixth Sense. I couldn’t believe people were surprised at either of those. I’m not someone who necessarily always figures out twists before they happen, but those two just seemed so obvious. It makes me wonder if they were intended to be as surprising as they were-- if maybe the writers and directors expected them to be more obvious, but for some reason, they weren’t.
I don’t know that it was ever regarded as a twist when it was first published, but if you read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein without any preconceptions about the story, it 100% reads like Victor Frankenstein is a psychotic murderer, and the Monster is purely a figment of his imagination. The book has a framing device set on an arctic trawler, where Dr. Frankenstein, on his deathbed, reveals the whole sordid story to a (iirc, unnamed) third party. In Viktor’s tale, nobody ever sees the monster but him. Everyone the monster kills is someone with a close, personal connection to Viktor. It genuinely sounds like Shelley is describing someone with dissociative identity disorder, and that it’s Viktor doing the killing in some sort of fugue state, and then hallucinating a “monster” he can blame it on. And then, at the end of the novel, he finally dies, and the guy he’s been talking to is, like, “Well, that guy was super crazy,” until he glances out the porthole and sees the monster watching them both through the glass.
Like I said, I don’t know if it was ever intended or received as a twist, but damn, it really reads like a twist.
I don’t think the idea of Dissociative Identity Disorder existed then. When I read it, the “twist” seemed to me that Frankenstein reported that he was pursuing the monster in order to destroy it, when in reality, the monster was pursuing him. I was never sure if it was an error of perception, or a deliberate lie. The more I learned about Shelley, the more I decided it was a deliberate lie.
No, I’m pretty sure the concept didn’t exist yet, but the way Shelley describes it is virtually identical to how modern authors would write about it.* It almost feels cliche if you don’t keep in mind that the book predates the cliche by a good 50 years, minimum.
*I don’t want to say it’s identical to how it actually presents, because I have no idea, and neither do most authors who use the trope.
Yes, Exactly! Just like in The Sting the climax and the reveal are two separate events. It seemed like a straight ahead Western which were quite popular when that movie was made but the old west was just the setting for a far more complex story. I didn’t see it until I was an adult but it still hit me hard – I was standing there with the carpet ripped from beneath me.
Three times movies have left me feeling light headed with the hair on the back of my neck standing. The first was The Sting when I was a kid (okay, I didn’t get ALL of it on first viewing but back then you could sit through a movie twice). After the second viewing when I had put together all the moving parts and saw who controlled ALL the elements it made me shudder. The second time was The Sixth Sense which I saw well after the initial release. I knew there was a ‘twist’ and said out loud the correct secret – and my companion who usually has no guile said, “yea, that is what everyone says because they know there is a secret - watch to see if you are right.” It was the perfect thing to set me up, I was very careful for ten minutes then I completely dismissed the premise. I only came back to the idea sixty to ninety seconds before the audience was supposed to know. It literally created the sensation of falling and grasping at air to save yourself. I had known the answer and dismissed it – that doesn’t happen to me!! Ever! Then finally I had the TV on in the background while I was doing tasks but I got caught up in some western movie so watched with attention abandoning my chores. Near the end of ABHftLL after watching the whole movie I was ready to change channels and move on when it came back from commercial and by accident I witnessed some of the best cinema ever. I almost missed it!
Not sure if this qualifies, but how about “The calls are coming from… inside the house!”
That’s really an urban legend that existed long before it was used in movies, though.
Redone and torn apart by Lord Darcy and Randall Garrett where Darcy explains it couldnt be all of them.
June???
Except that is not true at all. See, there are two Good Witches. The film conflates them. In the book it is the Good Witch of the North who meet Dorothy. Later, Glinda the Good Witch of the South, tells Dorothy that.
Locasta is a elderly witch, not that powerful, who is very kindly.
Except that it is 100% true in the movie, which is obviously what Wallaby is talking about. IMO it’s one of the biggest flaws in the movie. Even if they didn’t want to include an excessive number of witches, they could have had Glinda on her return say that she had been off researching the Ruby Slippers, and just found out that they had this power.
The twist that the Wizard is a fraud is the same in the book and the movie. Both are equally blase about the fact that he sent four people off to near certain death when he knew he wasn’t able to keep the terms of the agreement. He’s regarded as a loveable rogue instead of a stone-cold villain.
They had to cut quite a bit of the film anyway.
Note that the Film was considered a bit of a bust to start, it was later when it became popular.
Not to mention, one can always use the old RAH Glory Road excuse- in that without her experiences that wouldnt work.
Which is exactly what they did in the movie. Glinda specifically says so: Dorothy would not believe it without the experiences.
She’s even more explicit than that, isn’t she? Doesn’t she say that the magic won’t work if Dorothy doesn’t come to that conclusion herself?
I’ve seen the movie and read the book a number of times, and sometimes I forget what comes from where.
Yep:
Dorothy : Oh will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda : You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy : I have?
The Scarecrow : Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda : Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
The Tin Man : What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy : Well, I, I think that it, that it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. And it’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?
Glinda : That’s all it is.
Dorothy: Oh yeah? You didn’t even think to try me, bitch? You don’t suppose that, somewhere along the way, I wouldn’t have just tried clicking my heels together, just in case?
If Glinda is right- and she always is- then it wouldnt have worked.
Dorothy wouldnt have the need and belief to get it done.
So this turns out to be one of those bad memes like why didnt they just give the Eagles the ring to drop in mt Doom.
The ship’s captain is named, several times – Captain Walton.
And Walton and his crew saw the Monster going by sled before Victor Frankenstein shows up, asking if they’d seen him.
Then the monster shows up in Walton’s cabin at the end, after Victor dies.
It’s pretty clear to me that Shelley did NOT intended the Monster to simply be a figment of Victor’s tortured imagination.
It would be an interesting “take” on the story, although then you need to come up with how the various characters – Victor’s little brother, the nursemaid, Henry Clerval – all get killed, when Victor is nowhere near. I’m not saying it can’t be done, just pointing out things that would have to be allowed for.