Re: Whatever happened to "The End?" / unusual "end" titles

From: David P. Hayes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.past-films
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 4:55 PM

>Bobster123 wrote:
>> It seems to me that, at one time, virtually every movie ended with
>> a title card that read, "The End."
>> Now- it's become standard practice to have a fade and credits
>> rolling up the screen.
>> Just wondering if anyone out there knows whatever became of "The End?"
>> Did Hollywood just decide it was too old-fashioned, or did audiences
>> get tired of seeing it at the end of every movie for all those years?

My surmise that the "film school generation" of filmmakers were influenced by the prints of foreign films that they saw, was detailed in an earlier post in this thread.

Steve Crook wrote in message <34D69005.3F54BC7E@brainstorm.co.uk>…
>Some people used to play around with it though.
>"Miranda (1948)" - the one with Glynis Johns as a mermaid
>ended with her tail disappearing below the waves and the word
>
> FIN
>
>Well *I* thought it was clever :)

Other examples of clever and unusual "end" titles:

"Feuding Fools," a 1952 Bowery Boys comedy, has Leo Gorcey being chased by gun-toting hillbillies into the distance. They aim. In the foreground, Huntz Hall tells the audience, "They got him -- right in… ." At that point, the words "The End" are superimposed onto the screen. Hall then nods, as if to indicate to the audience that the words not only refer to this being the conclusion of the movie, but that those superimposed words also describe where the hillbillies' bullets made contact with Gorcey's body.

"Shake, Rattle and Rock," from American-International, 1958, ends with a superimposed title "The Most," after which, beneath those two words and in smaller letters are superimposed "To Say the Least," after which in smaller letters still, we read "An American-International Picture."

"The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow," from also American-International, this time 1959, signals its conclusion with "The Endest, Man."

--
David Hayes

 

Return to Table of Contents

Go to next article