No Surprise
I was at a friend's house watching The Sting. Several kids were in the audience.
At the end (BIG SPOILER), Robert Redford and Paul Newman, who appeared to be dead a few seconds before, pop up back to life, having pulled off their con. The kids weren't surprised (or said they weren't), and I wasn't surprised they weren't surprised. Heroes don't lose in movies these days--there are double and triple and quadruple crosses, and they manage to end up on top.
Back in 1973, the previous film the duo had made was Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, where they died at the end. And early 70s movies were full of heroes who failed. I'd guess the audience then was far from sure either Redford of Newman would make it out okay.
However, no matter what the kids claim, there's no way they saw through the hitman subplot.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:20 AM
2 Comments:
I had a relative who as a grad student tended to blow up quickly. He was so unhappy when it looked like the hero died in The Sting that he stormed out before the surprise ending. When days later, he was finally told what he missed and eventually made to believe it by his young kid relative (me), he was even more furious that the film-makers would play with him in that way.
Of course over the years, as this relative became a non-volatile successful executive, I've begun to wonder if he was just playing with me.
He'p me . . . he'p me . . .
SWMBCg, etc.
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