The Well I Never! Endings Stories

The ending of a film is so important. For every Some Like It Hot, there’s a Sunshine. For every The Usual Suspects, there’s a The Return Of The King. Or rather several, seemingly interminable The Return Of The Kings.

It’s obvious that outside pressures can influence the way a writer or director decides to end their masterpiece, particularly when studio money men are breathing down their neck. But I’ve had my ears opened to a couple of surprising stories about movie endings that I’d like to share.

The first concerns Gareth Edwards, the Godzilla director, who made his name writing, filming and directing the the ultra-low budget Monsters. He had a crew of six, and did the CGI gubins himself with off-the-shelf special effects software. Parts of it were filmed in Mexico, where near the end of shooting, Edwards was suffering with a bad back caused by lugging a heavy camera about. He was persuaded to get a massage, and relates the tale [taken from The Museum of Curiosity, Series 4, Episode 3, currently available on BBC iPlayer Radio]:

GARETH EDWARDS: “The woman laid me down, played this tranquil music and it was the first calm in the whole shoot. Now, the big bone of contention in our film was: ‘How do we end our movie?’ because the producers wanted everything to end well, and I wanted this more pessimistic ending. So I was playing the film through in my head, and it’s the first chance I’ve had to really think about this, and I just kept repeating the end of the movie in my mind. As I’m doing this I’m relaxing even more, and the woman finally finishes and she just leans down and whispers in my ear: “Happy ending?” And she now has an Executive Producer credit on our film.”

The second ending story comes from Stephen Tobolowsky, the actor who played Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day [Heard on The Tobolowsky Files Ep. 29 – The Classic, available on iTunes]:

STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY: “A crisis happened on the set near the end filming. It was the final scene. It’s where Bill realises that time starts again; it’s huge. You’ll remember Andi and Bill fall asleep together in bed, there’s a moment of blackness, the clock goes off, Bill’s eyes open with terror, he’s alone in the shot and the camera starts to pull back, and then surprisingly Andi’s arm crosses frame and turns off the alarm. It’s a new day.

“When I first saw this movie in a full house the audience actually began applauding. It’s a scene that’s breathtaking in its simplicity, and it’s a scene that almost didn’t get shot. Bill refused to shoot it. Harold Ramis and Andi McDowell were exasperated – they wanted to get on with it, Bill said absolutely not, unless he knew what he was wearing. Harold Ramis said: “What do you mean?” Bill said: “Am I wearing all of my clothes? Am I naked? Am I wearing pyjamas? Is my shirt unbuttoned? Did we do it?” Harold was surprised. This is a pretty good question: did they do it? Harold asked Bill what he thought. Bill said: “Hey, I’m asking you!” Amazingly, Harold said: “Let’s take a vote.” He polled the entire crew working on the movie and it was a tie. It came down to a girl who was an assistant set director. It was her first movie, but she was unintimidated. She said: “He is dressed in the clothes he wore the night before, all of them, absolutely, and if you do it any other way it will ruin the movie.” Harold Ramis smiled and said to Bill: “You’re dressed in all of your clothes. Absolutely. If you do it any other way, it’s going to ruin the movie.” Bill nodded, and that’s the way they shot it.”

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