Errol Olivia by Matzen Robert

Author:Matzen, Robert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paladin Communications
Published: 2010-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

The original Dodge City ending: Abbie and Wade get hitched moments after Wade shoots all the bad guys off their horses from the moving fire train. Hal Wallis doesn’t just dislike this finish to the picture, he hates it.

The last scene of the picture also troubles Wallis when he watches the dailies: After the fire in the mail car, and after the gun battle and the deaths of Surrett and Yancy, Wade and Abbie return to the passenger car—singed from the fire and breathless from the gunfight, but both very much alive. They start their usual byplay, at which point Rusty says, “If you’re gonna bicker, you might as well get married,” and it just so happens there’s a preacher right on the train!

Of this scene, Wallis writes to Curtiz: “I am sure it will not work out. It is flat, and not important enough for the picture, and I don’t want to end the picture on that phony laugh of Olivia de Havilland’s.”

The entire last reel of Dodge City threatens to be the death of Hal Wallis. So he orders Buckner to write something different, which results in the scene that ends the film, shot on the last day of production, January 18, 1939.

DISSOLVE TO DODGE CITY, a day or two after the gunfight on the train. Wade, Rusty, and Tex are offered the opportunity to go clean up another murderous town, Virginia City, Nevada. Wade says he can’t do such a thing to his bride, to place her back in harm’s way, and the boys are depressed that their town-tamin’ days are over. Then Abbie, who has overheard the conversation, walks in and delivers the last line in the picture, “When do we leave for Virginia City?” and the boys whoop it up. It is a strange, unsatisfactory ending because Abbie is clearly not enthused about reliving the experience just past, which has seen the deaths of her brother, boss, and a cute little kid—not to mention that she is sacrificing her own happiness for that of her thrill-seeking husband.

The contrived last shot of the picture shows Wade driving a covered wagon on the journey to Virginia City, with Abbie snuggled next to him. Wallis and Curtiz paint a pretty picture—the stars riding off into the sunset in Technicolor, but in truth, there is no ending to Dodge City. Nothing that makes sense, anyway.

Compounding the problem of the finish of the picture is a bout of bronchitis that has laid de Havilland flat. A week away from closing out production, Frank Mattison begs Lilian to let her daughter ride over the hill to the studio to work. Livvie does report for duty, but Mattison says of Livvie in his daily report to Wallis, “I talked with her in Makeup this morning and she is really sick. As you can tell by looking at her, she has no color whatever.”

Livvie describes a surreal experience amidst this medical drama. On December 31, 1938, Jack and Ann Warner throw an annual New Year’s Eve party at their 12-acre Beverly Hills estate.

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