When reading your article, the first movie that came to mind was the recently shown "GILDA", which I always thought was great except for the improbable ending.  After being shown as a cheap seductress for most of the film, the police capt. explains it all away as she never DID any of the affairs Glenn Ford thought she did, but was only trying to make him jealous?  How the heck would HE know?  And the men's room attendant killing the neurotic husband , after waiting the last third of the movie for his dramatic return!!   Where'd THAT come from?     Sorry, but this always seemed such a letdown to an otherwise well-written and acted film noir.

I know this may sound like sacrilege but I actually preferred James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma to the original. I hardly ever feel that way about Hollywood remakes but in this case I think the storyline was more plausible and so was the ending. Plus Russell Crowe's performance was more complex than Glenn Ford's. And of course Mangold's version was action-packed but not in a gratuitious way.

I disagree — the ending is crucial in storytelling.  The subject of endings gets discussed a lot by novel writers, and how a poor ending will often prevent readers from seeking out further books by that writer after that first book.  I don't think you can put enough emphasis on having a good and true ending to a tale.  A lousy ending will leave me cold to the entire project and I won't sit through the movie again or read a book again. (and I'm one of those who will go back to the theatre multiple times when a movie works, start to finish) But the problem of bad endings is not upbeat vs. downbeat, the problem is when the ending filmed/written is not the one supported by the rest of the movie.  A downbeat ending can be a perfectly satisfying conclusion — if everything in the movie leads you to that place.  It's got to be natural and organic, growing from the plot and the choices the characters make, and if the ending goes counter to that, if the characters abruptly change personalities, etc. then it won't ring true and the ending will fail.

Hi there HH!You know, I have to disagree about the ending of Fail Safe.  What Fonda does is improbable, perhaps, but also equally inescapable, inevitable, and of course horrifying in all aspects.  I think he pretty well goes over all possibilities in his mind and with the Russian representative, and, especially considering the Cold War mentality of the time, what else could they do?Even, as you said, if you don't buy the ending, the rest of the movie is superb in all aspects.  (Of course, that movie was made at a time when you could be reasonably sure that your President was capable of making a momentous decision like that at the end of Fail Safe….)

Perhaps a Cold War mentality is required to accept the implausibility of the Fail Safe decision, Medusa, but: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." – Mahatma Gandhi

HighHurdler, your intriguing article really gave me a lot to think about.I began to wonder about the reasons for our seeming addiction to neat, (sometimes too neat), endings. Does it go back to Aristotle's theory of tragedy, in which he understood that for audiences to experience a cathartic emotional experience, a beginning, middle and (a satisfying) end were needed to elicit the desired and perhaps transformative response  from a disparate group watching any tragedy, (or comedy, for that matter).  Your nailed one of the joys and weaknesses of American films for me: the plot driven narrative, and its apparent grip on the imagination of American filmmakers, especially by those who pursued melodrama, which, though they may be categorized by genres such as mysteries or love stories or horror movies–many great American movies were essentially melodramas. We've been so conditioned to expect resolutions at the end of films. I tend to enjoy movies from the studio era that "appear" to have happy endings, but leave the viewer wondering a bit about the ultimate outcome of the character's lives. One such film would be the Mitchell Leisen film, Hold Back the Dawn (1941), in which Charles Boyer, as a cynical  European émigré and sometime gigolo, awaiting legal entry to the U.S. from Mexico after the outbreak of WWII, exploits the guilelessness of Olivia De Havilland, who plays a hopeless innocent schoolteacher visiting south of the border. Long story short, he marries her, discovers his capacity for love through her generosity and eventually will, we are assured at the end of the film, find happiness in the land of plenty, despite their mismatched natures and experience. Or do they?I wonder if audiences at the time, despite their superficial appearance of naive acceptance of the Hollywood endings from our distant viewpoint, didn't conclude that the happiness depicted on screen was just as transitory as it sometimes is in life. I often like to guess about the afterlife of movie characters, who, if they were real were, after all, only human, and a product of their environment and experiences? It's fun to speculate on how well the characters in a light comedy such as Pat and Mike really work out their problems after the camera stops rolling or how things really go for Van Heflin and Jean Arthur and their son after Shane rides off toward the mountains.I enjoy films with an unimportant ending. Just last night I was reminded of this when viewing The Rounders (1965), a modern day cowboy movie in which we observe a pair of amiable cowboys (Glenn Ford & Henry Fonda) as they ply their trade and look for a bit of fun occasionally. Their goals and that of the movie are secondary to the enjoyment of the characters that these actors are allowed to sketch throughout this leisurely film. A similarly relaxed attitude toward plot development propells Tortilla Flat (1941) with Spencer Tracy, John Garfield, and Frank Morgan, among several others. The actors bring John Steinbeck's characters to life within the framework of a rather quiet, and admittedly sometimes dull picture, sparkling with some small moments that shine. These films end, but without a "wow" finish.  I don't think that I'd like to watch only movies with character development rather than plot driven advancement of characters and story, but I do enjoy it when filmmakers allow a leisurely look at individual players–even those in small or seemingly insignificant parts. The denouement is not always king, at least for me.    

   Do we need the perfect ending to have closure on a story line ?  We don't like to be left hanging by incomplete endings…Did he come back ?  Did she leave ?  Did they ever find each other ?  We don't like the uneasy feeling of the unanswered.  It goes back to our childhood reading with – they lived happily ever after. The End.   We all know budgets ran out and they said get the thing finished and bring in so and so to complete this within budget.  Hence the hasty , incongruous ending that neatens everything up.      I like the challenge in a mystery to figure out the plot filiments that they didn't quite explain away.  They end up on the cutting room floor and someone forgets to add the explanation as a side bar.     I'd much prefer an unusual ending to the same old predictable happy ending.  Hollywood let's get creative and come up with new endings.

Mangold is right when he refers to the emphasis placed on endings, but I think it's the studios that seem to want to wrap up most movies with a bright bow at the end. So many of these modern films go for the touchy-feely, sappy, stupid-as-heck endings that disgust and depress me more than a terrific ironic, unsettled or simply sad finale. Most intelligent TV series nowadays show no fear of ambiguity when it comes to wrapping up an episode.If an ending is happy, it has to earn it in the previous 2 hours. Otherwise it's just an affront to the audience. One of the worst in recent memory was the horribly violent, sadistic PANIC ROOM with Jody Foster. After so much carnage and craziness, they tacked on a dumb, smiley, pastorale coda with mother and daughter that defied the tone of the entire movie. One thing I continually find amazing is that Hollywood films in the golden eras of the 30s and 40s (especially) wrapped up their movies in a quick and clean manner. A good example is Cukor's DAVID COPPERFILED. Today, oddly (in a time of so much cynicism) moviemakers tend to draw out the pathos and corniness ad infinitum. Look at TITANIC or RETURN OF THE KING. 

Then again, a good filmmaker can usually overcome a weak conclusion.  Look at Martin Scorcese — he hasn't crafted a decent ending since King of Comedy.  In fact, most of Scorcese's movies fall apart in the third act… but audiences remember them for his incredible sense of style and emotion.  That's what he's celebrated for, and rightly so. Of course, I may be completely bonkers.  After all, I saw Fail Safe for the first time around seven years ago, and I completely bought into it, including the ending.