Can 1 Scene Ruin a Movie?

Gone with the Wind used to be one of my favorite movies. It used to come to the theaters every ten years or so and I remember the first time I saw it. I really loved it.

The depictions of Mammy and Prissy had always bothered me but there were just so many other good things in the movie I overlooked them,

But the scene where Scarlett encounters Big Sam and the other slaves from the plantation and Big Sam says, "Mrs. O'Hara said it was for the Confederacy, so we gone to dig for the South.", has finally, after repeated viewings, ruined the movie for me.

To me the scene was a justification for slavery saying that the slaves were happy and better off the way they were. The whole movie is a lament for the lost, civilized culture of the Old South. That wasn't the way it really was.

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"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."- Groucho Marx

The party scene (where two women on a table, with guys cheering them on) in Requiem For A Dream ruined the movie for my girlfriend...that's all she can remember from that movie, and wishes never to watch it again...

As for myself, I don't remember a movie ruined because of one scene, but I'll give it some more thought...

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When I first seen the film The Butterfly Effect it had a certain ending to the film, but then I mistakenly bought the directors cut which had an absolutely different ending scene and I was just like "Huh.....?". I much preferred the original ending I'd seen on the tv. Kinda ruined the version I'd bought.

The scene in Parenthood where the Rick Moranis character sings "Close To You" to his wife teaching class.

THe entire hotel scene in Garden State was ridiculous.

Especially when the hotel employee asks, "who just saw some titties?"

I'm getting pissed off just typing this!

I suppose it's understandable that one scene can ruin an entire movie, but I don't let it bother me. If I see a bad scene or a scene that I don't agree with, I just think wtf was the director thinking. Especially if the rest of the movie is great, there's no reason why you should let once scene turn you off from never seeing it again.

Gone with the Wind is a classic and I think it'll always be enjoyable.

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A bad ending can certainly ruin a movie. I really was enjoying Anger Management until the ending completely invalidated everything that came before it.

I thought the last scene in a History of Violence really messed with my enjoyment there.

Same goes for my girlfriend.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

what? history of violence was an awesome movie! good good good all the way through!

The Searchers (1956)

John Ford's The Searchers is a classic and all, but for me it is ruined by one crucial scene at the end. After a long and bloodthirsty Hellbent mission to hunt and kill the Indians responsible for massacring much of his family, John Wayne's Ethan Edwards finally gets the Injuns and finds Debbie (Natalie Wood), his niece who was captured during the initial raid and forced to become an Indian squaw. Edwards as a character is a racist who absolutely despises the Natives. His stated goal if they ever find Debbie alive is to kill her, since she has now lived among them and is impure. But when that moment arrives during the finale, Ethan of course has a swift change of heart and instead of shooting her dead he sweeps her into his arms and says they're finally going home.

As a Hollywood movie of the 1950s, I suppose there's no other way it could have ended. But for me the sudden change in the character is very unsatisfying and there are few real hints or justifications that it is coming. The Ethan Edwards we see for most of the film is a sad, bitter, angry, lonely man who's naked rage and racism makes it for me far and away the best role of Wayne's career. Had the movie carried through with that darkness to its logical conclusion and had Ethan murder pretty little Debbie in her moccasins, then The Searchers becomes an extremely bold and brilliant movie in my book. But since Ford and company can't quite commit and let the character do what he was designed to do, it really ruins the whole movie for me. The hairpin turn in character gives it a kind of "happy" and hopeful ending, and Debbie is reunited with the family before Ethan walks out into the wilderness to be alone forever. But imagine the statement the movie would have made and the acting Wayne would have had to pull off if he gunned her down in cold blood and then had to return her body to the family, realizing after his rage and ingrained racism has subsided a bit what he's actually done. THAT is an ending....but that scene doesn't exist.





Suspicion (1941)

Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion is about handsome playboy Johnnie Aysgarth (Cary Grant) who has a whirlwind romance and quickly marries a spinster heiress (Joan Fontaine). But while he is charming and suave, she begins to suspect that he has only married her for her fortune, and what's worse intends to murder her. The body of the film is filled with typical Hitchcockian suspense as even small seemingly innocent gestures become sinister. What a great part for Cary Grant. After becoming a movie superstar in romantic comedies like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife, using that inherently likeable screen persona to mask an opportunistic murderer is a brilliant touch. Unfortunately, the ending lets us down again. After event after event that seem sinister, Johnnie takes her for a drive up a twisty, dangerous road. At the moment when it seems he is going to finish her off once and for all, he takes her into his arms, expresses his true love, and the audience is supposed to buy that every single thing that happened in the flick was just a series of misunderstandings. And they lived happily ever after.

In the book and the way Hitch wanted to shoot it, Aysgarth is a killer, and he eventually poisons his bride. Hitch even had a great twist for the finale, where she writes a letter explaining how she was killed just before he enters the room with the poison, and after she's dead seeing the unmailed letter he casually takes it to the mailbox, not realizing he has sealed his own fate in the process. Had THAT been the ending, I think it shoots near the top of Hitchcock's best movies. Instead it is stuck somewhere in the middle, very forgettable despite good work from Grant and Nigel Bruce. The ending as is doesn't work, it's fake and illogical. A couple years later Hitch returned to the theme and got it dark and right with Shadow of a Doubt, where Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie is an unrepentant monster. Too bad the powers that be at the Studio wouldn't let Cary Grant play such a character first.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I thought the exact same thing about Searchers. I used this film in a paper for the film class I was in at the time. My thesis was about Hollywood endings: their role in Golden Age cinema, their rationale and their existence in current Hollywood productions. I used Searchers almost exclusively for the first part. As you said, Wayne's character was dark and emotionally abused. His change of heart was the most out of character moment I have ever seen. This scene completely ruined the movie for me, leaving Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance as my favorite John Wayne flick.

I never had a problem with the ending to Suspicion. One of Hitchcock's premiere talents is the manipulation of human paranoia. Fontaine's character had doubts of Johnnie's love, and these doubts led to her assurance of his evil intentions. And as the audience sees the world through Lina's eyes, we are led into the same belief system.

I agree Hitchcock's proposed ending is vastly superior to waht happened. (Your post Holden is the first I have heard of it.) But this did not ruin the movie for me in any way.
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A film that was ruined by a scene was the end to Equilibrium. (A film I used in my Hollywood endings paper.) Everything worked out very nicely for Bale's character. His son turned out to be on his side, he cut through the leader and all his guards. I would have liked the movie considerably more had Bale died fighting the good fight. He could have killed Brandt (giving him some victory) only to die before he could get to Seamus. That would have been cool.

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"What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - T.S. Eliot

The Searchers is a movie about a man who became a racist because his mother had been killed by Comanche. It is also the story of a man who learns from a younger man, Martin and begins to heal.

There are many hints that Ethan is healing as the movie goes on. His developing relationship with Martin, who is 1/4 Cherokee is the major barometer. the relationship which started out pretty rocky developed to the point where the following dialogue pointed to what was to follow.

Ethan : 'I, Ethan Edwards, being of soundmind and without any blood kin, do hereby bequeath all my property ofany kind to Martin Pauley...'
Martin : I don't want your property....'Sides, what do you mean no 'bloodkin?' Debbie's your blood kin...
ETHAN : Not no more.
MARTIN : You can keep your will! I ain't forgettin' you was all set to shoot her yourself...What kind o' man are you, anyway.

Martin had become the role model and mentor for Ethan. After Ethan killed Scar his hatred and anger at what had happened to his mother, his love (Martha) and his other family members began to subside and he could finally begin to heal. His bringing Debbie home was only the first step. He still could't enter into the house but he was on the road to healing.

Ethan was the personification of a racist for all Americans in a very racially divided 1956 America. If the Southern hero, Ethan Edwards, could make progress as a human and begin to put his racism behind him couldn't all other American begin to do the same?

The Searchers is one of the most important movies that has ever been filmed on racism in America and I think its ending is perfect.

That is a horrible ending. Why would a cleric with such skills die from Seamus?

The Hills Have Eyes remake. The scene where they are going to the father, and th ebaby is left in the trailer...i dont want to give away anything for those who havent seen it, but what comes after just completely ruined the movie for me. I dont mind gore and stuff, but stupid people...yeah. I mean, they went from normal people to completely stupid in all of 2 minutes.

no one bad scene cant ruin a movie, but a couple can..for instance in Clerks II...wat the **** is the point of the dancing on the roof scene...the only reason its in the film is cuz Rosario Dawson's titties bounce so much in that scene lol...that scene sucks over all but it didnt ruin the movie...

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"Hey, I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule." Randal Graves from Clerks.

No. Nor can one scene save a movie.

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"Like all dreamers, Steven mistook disenchantment for truth."

That scene had a purpose, it shows the chemistry between Dante and Becky, how comfortable they are with each other as opposed to the way Dante and his fiancee are. Oh, and it's also a funny homage to the dance scene with Ray Charles in The Blues Brothers.

The 'explanation' in Psycho. Why, Alf, why?

To be honest, because I got their names mixed up. Brandt could have killed Bale's character after he killed Seamus.

However, it does not change the fact that the end of Equilibirium completely ruined the movie. Rather than a comment on progression of society, we get any other action movie.

The answer is YES. Don't be a retard about it. That would be like saying a painting is good even though the corner looks all f_cked up. You asked a fallacious yes or no question so the answer you'll get will be simple minded one. Dag' gum'. Thought I was gonna' have to bust a freakin' cap or somethin'.

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