Discuss Isadora
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The movie's ending
posted by genplant29STAFFMOD on February 12, 2020 at 9:12 PM
While I don't recall anything (whatsoever) else about this movie, I'll never forget that ending!
I saw this movie on t.v. when I was a kid, when it had its first broadcast after concluding in theatres. That ending definitely shocked me to the max and totally caught me off guard!
* * * SPOILER CLIP of that scene * * *
From Wikipedia, about the real-life Isadora Duncan's death (which was even worse than as depicted in the movie):
On the night of September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was a passenger in an Amilcar CGSS automobile owned by Benoît Falchetto, a French-Italian mechanic. She wore a long, flowing, hand-painted silk scarf,...a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges. Desti...saw Duncan off....As they departed, she [Duncan] reportedly said to Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire !" ("Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!"); but according to the American novelist Glenway Wescott, Desti later told him that Duncan's actual parting words were, "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love"). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst. // Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, pulling her from the open car and breaking her neck. Desti said she called out to warn Duncan about the scarf almost immediately after the car left. Desti brought Duncan to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead. // As The New York Times noted in its obituary, Duncan "met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera." "According to dispatches from Nice, Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement." Other sources noted that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous"....
Please check out the following list of titles and celebrities I've created TMDb threads for: https://www.themoviedb.org/list/118052
Reply by wonder2wonder
on February 12, 2020 at 9:54 PM
One would expect such an ending to happen in a different kind of film. Not in a biographical film.
Side note:
What happened is known as the "Long Scarf Syndrome" or "Isadora Duncan Syndrome".
Fashion can be harmful to your health.
Reply by genplant29
on February 12, 2020 at 9:58 PM
Though I only saw this film the one time in childhood, that unexpected (to me at the time) ending - coming completely out of the blue - certainly did leave an indelible mark in my memory!
Reply by znexyish
on February 12, 2020 at 10:49 PM
Curious as to what brought this movie back to your memory. At least she didn't go all the way like poor Jayne Mansfield
You know I was thinking about watching Nicholas and Alexandria Hope nothing goes bad at the end of that one 🤭
Besides endings both those movies are from the brief era of "roadshow movies" which is a thread of its own. Maybe I'll work on it.
Reply by genplant29
on February 12, 2020 at 11:02 PM
znex, a lot of my posting ideas materialize via "following the bouncing ball", of that something I remember, or that I see, read, hear, or comment somewhere then suddenly will bring something else to my mind that I realize would be good subject matter or topic for a new thread.
I thought of Isadora in the course of responding to this thread.
Reply by znexyish
on February 12, 2020 at 11:19 PM
That thread had a new look. Is that just a test page ?
Reply by genplant29
on February 12, 2020 at 11:23 PM
Take a look at it for about 2 minutes, and then I'll "fix" it. (I have the flu, am just barely [including regarding brain sharpness and mental energy] dragging along, and accidentally linked to the forthcoming TMDb version, rather than the current version. I'll change it in about 2 mins., giving you time to look at the new way first.)
Reply by znexyish
on February 12, 2020 at 11:24 PM
Looks good.
Reply by northcoast
on February 13, 2020 at 6:14 AM
Feel better, genplant29--
Since this is a movie forum, and there is of course a film quote for every occasion, let me paraphrase the late Rock Hudson, as he portrayed the American President in one of his (Hudson's) last film appearances, the 1982 television movie "World War III":
"You must drown yourself in juices!"
(A version of this line was said by Hudson when he hears that the Soviet Premier-- played by the late Brian Keith, whose character Hudson is sympathetic to --has supposedly fallen ill with the stomach flu).
Do feel better, genplant29.
Reply by genplant29
on February 13, 2020 at 6:29 AM
Thanks so much, my friend!
Sure am looking forward to things returning to normal soon.