Deceptively dark movie endings

It’s a Wonderful Life: old man potter gets away with stealing the money.

 

The Fugitive.
Richard Kimble solves his wife's murder, the real perpetrators are arrested, and Deputy Sam Gerard has the evidence to prove it all.
Only Kimble still has a jury conviction hanging over his head and is going back to prison and death row until it's sorted out. I'm sure he'd get a stay of execution, but a pardon from the governor or a full dismissal of the charges is going to take weeks or months to come at the earliest. In an ironic twist, he'd probably even get some years tacked on to his sentence for escaping prison and felony eluding. It's not like the worthless-ass lawyer who got him sent to death row in the first place is going to get him off.

Plus, Kimble still has the dead transit cop to answer for. Sykes could easily offer a plausible story that Kimble shot him, which the now-embarrassed Chicago PD and DA would love to roll with in exchange for a guilty plea on the murder of Kimble's wife. I think there's a good chance Richard Kimble is still in prison by the time U.S. Marshals came out.
On the bright side, at least Dr. Charles Nichols is going to prison for attempted murder of a federal Marshal no matter how Kimble's fate plays out.

 

Hoosiers — does Coach Dale just go to a mid-major? Does Miss Fleener follow him?

 

You’ve met, say, at least 10 men, yes?

 

I recently rewatched The Graduate — as a middle-aged adult — and there’s a lot of things that strike you differently.

And yeah, No. 1 on the list is that last shot on the back of the bus. Elaine goes from the elation of sticking it to her parents to (perhaps) realizing Ben is a psychopath and she’s thrown her lot in with him.

 

Agreed, and I think there’s a macro reading, too. It’s like, even in 1967, you can see where that youthful optimism of the country, where complete freedom will crash up against reality.

 

I’m just imaging girls asking 15-year-old Josh “have you been with anyone yet” and Josh saying “Yes and it’s a long story …”

 

It would take a while, but Kimble’s lawyer would try to get him a new trial and argue that if he was innocent, then he shouldn’t have been in prison to begin with and that he couldn’t be charged with escaping and eluding.

And would a jury believe Sykes when he claims Kimble killed the transit cop? I think the gun was Sykes’ to begin with.

 

Wonka says he’s going to train Charlie and tell him all the secrets. So presumably, Charlie learns until he’s an adult and ready to take over.

 

Grease: Danny decides to semi-change for Sandy with the letterman’s jacket, but abandons it when Sandy decides to change and become a bad girl. She’s giving up her good girl principles to keep a man.

The Untouchables: As fucked up as Capone is, he gets railroaded by his own lawyer with the sudden guilty plea.

 

I could see Sykes saying he and Kimble fought, Kimble beat him up, got the gun and shot the cop. There were a couple of other people in the train car, but one appeared to be asleep and the other was reading a paper. They'd remember the fight and the shots, but probably couldn't say for sure who fired the shots. Meanwhile, Sykes is sitting there handcuffed and beaten. If he's going to frame a guy for one murder, might as well do it for another. It's almost his word against Kimble's, and there's enough truth in that story for a jury or prosecutors to buy it.
Meanwhile, they cut a deal for him to testify against Nichols as well as Kimble. A two-for-one deal. Maybe I've been watching too many Law & Order reruns.
Point is, Kimble's legal issues and imprisonment are far from over at the end of the movie no matter how you slice it — which actually jibes with the guy the whole franchise is based on. Sam Sheppard spent 10 years in prison before he was finally acquitted.

Also, checking the Wiki page for Sam Sheppard learned me a bit of trivia I didn't know and that you'll appreciate. He had a brief pro wrestling career after he was released from prison and invented the Mandible Claw submission move.

 

Yeah, I knew about Sheppard’s brief wrestling career. He also married his tag team partner’s daughter,which just sounds weird.