If you’re a film lover who hates spoilers then you should jump off this page now unless you’ve seen all of the films cited below. For the rest of you who have favorite movies with curve ball endings, feel free to chime in with your own list. Here are the first five that spring to mind.  

1. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Originally broadcast as episode 142 or more precisely as Season 5, Episode 22 of “The Twilight Zone” TV series” this 1962 short French film by director Robert Enrico was not produced by Twilight Zone’s Cayuga Productions but was purchased as a solution to an overextended budget and production shutdown. An adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, it opens as a condemned officer faces his imminent hanging by soldiers on a bridge during the Civil War. The rope breaks when the trap opens, however, and he escapes in the churning river below. As he makes his journey home, he has a heightened sense of awareness of life. Just as he runs to embrace his waiting wife – a prolonged and agonizing sequence where time is stretched out in nightmarish slow motion – he is “jerked back” to reality as the hangman pulls the lever. It might seem predictable to someone seeing it for the first time now, but when the film was first broadcast the final seconds packed a knockout punch as the prisoner drops to his death and sways lifelessly above the water. By a strange coincidence, “Carnival of Souls” was released the same year and shares a strong similarity with “Owl Creek” with its blurred perceptions of reality and associations of death with running water. The haunting song that plays throughout the “Owl Creek – “The Living Man” – is by Henri LaNoe. It later won the Best Short Film Oscar in 1964.

Here’s a short clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3jP9_89lXc  

2. The Champagne Murders

A muddled and unnecessarily convoluted murder mystery from the “French Hitchcock,” Claude Chabrol, this 1967 feature is memorable for its wacky final scene that ends on a note of infinite madness. Jacqueline (Stephane Audran), who has tried to frame Paul (Maurice Ronet), a champagne tycoon, for murder with the help of her ex-husband Christopher (Anthony Perkins) slips into her alter ego identity before both men. She strips down to her underwear, puts on a black wig, removes her false eyelashes, puts in one dark brown contact lens and grabs the revolver from Christopher’s hand and tries to shoot Paul. All three begin to wrestle for the gun and Chabrol switches to an overhead shot of the threesome writhing around on the floor in what looks like a dollhouse set. As the camera pulls back, we see the struggling figures retreating further into a black abyss while their frantic voices and Pierre Jansen’s dramatic score continues to reverberate. I feel slightly delirious like I’m running a fever whenever I watch it.

3. Skyscaper Souls

One of the lesser heralded Pre-Code melodramas, this 1932 feature based on a Faith Baldwin bestseller starts out as a lighthearted look at promiscuity, desire and professional conduct among office workers in a big city office building. David Dwight (Warren William) is a powerful tycoon and legendary skirt-chaser who has a financial arrangement with his wife (Hedda Hopper) and a long-standing relationship with his loyal secretary Sarah (Verree Teasdale). But he throws caution to the wind when he attempts to seduce an innocent employee, Lynn Harding (Maureen O’Sullivan). Usually in films and in real-life, faithful mistresses of wealthy cads get discarded when younger, more desirable playmates come along and the general reaction is barely more than a cynical shrug but in “Skyscraper Souls,” we feel Sarah’s rage, despair and genuine tragedy. Sarah begs Dwight not to destroy Lynn’s life and reputation like he did hers so many years ago and when he laughs her off, she shoots him. Acknowledging his despicable behavior to Sarah as he lies dying, he also tells those who come to his aid that he accidentally shot himself (Only Warren William could pull off this gallant heel with a heart-of-gold character; it’s one of his specialties). Dwight dies, Lynn escapes with her virtue intact, and Sarah faced with the horrible fact that she killed the only man she ever loved jumps off the 100^th floor of the skyscraper in a spectacular and shocking moment of final release. Wow. And she seemed like the most sensible and wise character in the film – until she plugged Dwight with that revolver.

4. Hands on a Hard Body

This absolutely essential all-American 1997 documentary by R.S. Bindler is about an annual contest in Longview, Texas where participants gather around a brand new Nisson pickup truck and place their hands on it. The one who can stand up the longest without losing contact with the truck (they are allowed brief breaks for the bathroom and eating) gets to keep it. I know it sounds boring and uncinematic but trust me, it’s incredibly suspenseful and rich with colorful characters no Hollywood movie could ever invent. Without revealing to you which one is the ultimate winner, let me just say that it’s probably not any of the contenders you would pick. Appearances can be deceiving and we can’t always see who has the winning card up their sleeve.

Here’s a short clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoj5hNfJ3Y

5. Women in Love

For a Ken Russell film, this 1969 adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel is as flamboyant and subtle as an erupting volcano but the final scene ends on a note of quiet defiance – a fireside chat between a husband (Alan Bates) and wife (Jennie Linden) who disagree over whether a same sex friendship can ever match the depth and intimacy of a marriage. After all that has gone before – a double drowning, nude male wrestling, attack by dogs, suicide, insanity, violent sexual encounters and Russell’s relentless pursuit of the erotic – the ending is surprising for its restraint and for its unresolved argument. It might even inspire moviegoers to read the novel or stimulate a dialogue on what the movie is really about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXJ-AsQ4OJU