What happened at the ending? **SPOILER**

Watson said to Holmes in the film.

You're just like Don Quixote. You think that everything is always something else.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. TMBG has been one of my top ten's forever, since I saw it when it came out when I was six years old. The ending never really made me think. I suppose I just figured they died because, as Vonnegut said, it's convenient to end a book that way.

"We are all fools."

When you're in love, and bouncing with your lover through the environment like a pinball, sometimes you bother to look up for 2 seconds...and you see nothing but fools.

What this movie manages that others don't, is that it contains moments that are warmly enigmatic. There are words in this script that reach around your understanding and grab you in a much deeper place. It does no earthly good to try and go back and reason it out because it's something you already know--so there's no point in pinning down its meaning. Although, out of love, you certainly want to. The movie's ending is a precious puzzle, but I'd be just as content puzzling over its beginning or middle or four-sevenths of the way into it.

"He makes you feel proud." "He does."

We've all blurted out something that another person got right away, but that we lost all ability to decipher the moment it left our lips. That's great writing, to capture one of those moments, because originally, it's the kind of exchange that isn't at all meant for an audience, never understood when overheard by a third party--only when shared directly. Great, great script. Somebody already mentioned "A Thousand Clowns," I also am reminded of moments of dialogue in "WUSA" (another Woodward film).

I kind of ran through all this theories the first time I was watching it. At the very last moment of the ending, when the light gets brighter, I kept rewinding to see the expression on his face. At first I thought both their faces had changed very slightly to that of disappointment. Having not read any books on Holmes (yet) I came to the same conclusion that perhaps Holmes was Moriarty. I think it was a lil before Watson left him.

In any case, somebody did die that night. Either it was Moriarty when they discovered there was no Moriarty, or they really were killed by Moriarty.

I kind of thought they were hit by a car, but that just doesn't sit well. Maybe the light was that of realization.

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I still check this board when I get email updates.

As a heads up, this post is going to contain ***SPOILERS*** for a number of other movies.

I think the three main problems with the ending, are:

1.) If a comedy's basic premise is dreams vs. reality, the audience demands that dreams beat reality
2.) The play and film were made at a time when realism = cynicism
3.) The mystery of the blackmail should have been investigated like a real mystery (things like the reason for wanting Justin incarcerated or who the blackmailer was should have been slowly discovered by Justin & Watson).

I think Goldman "never got the play right" because it's fighting against the unambiguous happy ending that the play needs. It also suffers badly from having almost all of the characters (besides Justin and Watson) being one dimensional.

If you look at "Man of La Mancha", the main conceit of that play is that Cervantes is telling the story of Don Quixote to fellow inmates of a prison. Cervantes ends the play "realistically": after being gang raped by the mule drivers, Aldonza curses Don Quixote for introducing hope into her world, then Don Quixote is forced to look in a mirror and see that he is not a knight errant, just a delusional old man. The audience of prisoners complain violently about the ending, so Cervantes has to quickly whip up a happy ending for them. The happy ending is the least plausible part of an implausible story, but it feels "right" to the audience. On his deathbed, Don Quixote is "cured" of reality as he, Sancho Panza and Dulcinea/Aldonza sing joyfully about going on another quest -- and immediately after belting out the song, Don Quixote drops dead. (And just so that his death doesn't "ruin" the happy ending, Cervantes is immediately called to his trial, and as he exits the stage/jail, the prisoners all sing a stirring reprise of "The Impossible Dream".)

In TMBG, the ending is similar -- Dr. Watson/Sancho Panza joins Justin/Holmes/Don Quixote in his impossible dream, and they face the unbeatable foe together... but it lacks a rousing song to carry the audience past the "hey, wait a minute -- did they just die or... was that something real or imagined coming at them through the tunnel? And wasn't there something about some blackmailers or something? What was that all about?"

I also think there are some major character problems with the piece. Every character is either a good, down trodden everyman with a secret, romantic alter-ego, or they are an evil, humorless authority figure with zero imagination. (IMNSHO, an artifact of the era it was produced in.) Why does Justin pick Holmes as his delusional alter-ego? We are told that when he was a judge, he did nothing but good on the bench. So why does his imagination fly to a literary crime fighter? In real life this wouldn't matter, in a piece of literature, a leap like this works better if there is internal logic to it. For example, Bruce Wayne becomes Batman to revenge the murder of his parents by criminals, rather than Bruce Wayne becomes Batman because... hey, why not, just go with it, it's the central premise of a really cool story.

Once Goldman decided that Justin believed he was Holmes, he created a wonderful character piece but left himself with a huge problem: a real person can't be a literary character. So why would anybody, including Dr. Watson, realistically accept Justin as Holmes for even one second? If the play was to be "realistic", Justin needed to think he was a real, historical person -- J. Edgar Hoover or the Chief of Police -- or a type of person -- a private detective or member of the CIA -- then other characters could have "realistically" helped or hindered him, unaware that he was insane. Or, the play has to give up all pretense of "realism" and become an out and out farce/screwball comedy, where those characterizations and plots don't have to conform to reality. In Jeeves and Wooster, Bertie Wooster constantly accepts marriage proposals from women he loathes because a gentleman never declines the request of a lady -- then asks his valet for guidance on how to trick his fiancé into falling in love with somebody else. Or in "What's Up Doc?", music professors, spies and jewel thieves get into a huge pie fight and chase a Chinese dragon covered Volkswagen straight into the bay. Neither the least bit "realistic", but but the plots hold together much better than TMBG.

IMNSHO, I think that the story would have hung together better if the characters of Justin and Watson also included one or two "evil" parts. Justin's adoption of Holmes would have made more sense if he were somebody who originally wanted to do good on the bench, but slowly allowed himself to be corrupted. (This would also make the Holmes = Moriarty implication stronger and more frightening to Justin.) At her introduction, Dr. Watson is offended when she is asked to rubber stamp Justin's incarceration just to raise money for the clinic. Her character would have been stronger, I think, if she hadn't been 1000% ethical. If she felt obligated to make sure the clinic had money, so she was at least willing to bend her ethics. Then the chase through Manhattan could have been originally motivated by her attempting to get Justin to sign the commitment papers -- which he avoids signing long enough so that she gets sucked into his insanity/falls in love with him.

The minor characters all felt sketchy. A couple of them were given obvious, but weak, motivations: Jack Gilford's character, who ran the research library (?), wanted to be the Scarlet Pimpernel; Mr. Smalls, the heavyset mental patient, believed he was Rudolph Valentino; the couple who hid in the gardening school for 25 years wanted to avoid the cruel outside world. But they weren't woven into the plot. With the exception of Justin and Watson, you could have replaced any of the "good" characters with any random eccentric character, or any of the "evil" characters with any other random authority figure, and not have had to rewrite.

The blackmail subplot wasn't woven into the plot either. There wasn't enough time spent on it to remember why the blackmailers were trying to kill Justin -- or even to remember that there was an actual crime Justin was investigating. The first time I saw the film, Justin seemed to be running around aimlessly, stringing random pieces of reality together in his chain of "clues" -- which just served as set pieces to meet the next romantic victim of reality or keystone cop. You could have changed any of Justin's clues without changing the plot at all (instead a of bag of garbage with a "back to school" logo leading them to the "Bagg School", they could have seen a yellow school bus and gone to the "Yellow School" or an ad for a "Hedge Fund" and go to the "Fund School" where you learn to trim hedges, etc., etc., etc.) If it had been established, for example, that the blackmailer's name was "Bagg", then when Justin decided the bag of garbage meant the clue was the criminal's name was "Bagg", it would have felt more like he really was Sherlock Holmes -- and Dr. Watson would have been given a much stronger reason to become part of his world.

I don't think a literal ending was ever intended.
I should read the play. Theatre audiences are less addicted to spelled-out endings--in many cases.
I think they wanted to pose questions, and let the audience ponder them.

Carpe Noctem!