Written by Mr. Mouseburger 22nd Apr 2006
Kindly submitted by KrazyCorn
Phillip Vandamm is the most malevolent villain in Hitchcock history.After trying to lull the beautiful Eve Kendall, and trying to get on to the plane, a maid shoots at Roger with a gun filled with blanks.
Roger takes hold of Eve and they run towards the Mount Rushmore monument. They climb down closely followed by Vandamm and his right hand Leonard. Eve and Roger think they're safe, but Vandamm appears and tackles Roger. They roll down and it appears that Vandamm has Roger pinned. As Vandamm is trying to stab him, Thornhill resists with all his might, and he gains enough brute force to push Vandamm, causing the villain to lose his balance and fall off of the monument. Vandamm is screaming as he falls and, in true Hitchcock style, the camera switches to Thornhill before we can see what tree Vandamm is impaled on.
But it WAS a tree, right? shouldn't you have an object?
[quote][/quote][bgcolor=blue][/bgcolor] Well I'm not sure, Alls I saw was him falling and not getting impaled on that tree.
Excuse me, but this is COMPLETELY WRONG. It´s Leonard (Martin Landau), who falls to death - we never see, if he´s impaled or whatever. Vandamm, however, is not killed at all - he is caught by the police!
Can anyone confirm if this death is wrong? I've never seen the film.
Totally wrong! Leonard falls to his death (no indication whatsoever that he gets impaled on a tree) and Van Dam wrlyy comments to the Professor and the Rangers who have arrested him that it was unsporting to have used real bullets!
And may I apologise for my own mispelling of Vandamm above?! I had a Jean-Claude moment!
Well my good sir, if Vandamm didn't get killed by Thornhill at the end, who did?
Some guy named Leonard did, according to Rob.
sorry to intrude, but if you want to know who fell after fighting with Grant, it was some nameless henchman who was dogging Grant from the beginning
Leonard also fell, but only after being shot by rangers for stepping on Eva Marie Saint's fingerhold
hope this clears things up
I recently watched the film, and everyone is right. It is not Vandamm who falls. He survives and gets arrested.
The "nameless henchman" who does get thrown off Mt. Rushmore, is Leonard's "knife-throwing chum" (as Vandamm calls him), and is actually named Valerian, played by Adam Williams.
I literally just watched the film, and Leonard was killed not Vandamm. It lookedto me that Vandamm was stepping on Thornhill's feet, is shot and then falls.
I think that's already been established, and I've already submitted death writeups for Leonard and Valerian. Vandamm's entry can be eighty-sixed just as soon as those two go up, I guess.
Oh, sorry, got confused with the similar looking characters.
I just checked IMDB, and the character who dies is Valerian (Adam Williams), a Minor Baddy. He falls to his death after a struggle - no impaling that I saw.
Yes, Cybercat, the identity of the guy who takes the plunge has already been established.
No offense to KrazyKorn who originally did this writeup...but it just needs to be flat-out deleted, and this entire thread with it. Nobody actually reads through this thread before they post saying "No it was [insert name of henchman here]; Vandamm survives."
Not to sound pushy, but I've submitted separate writeups for both Valerian and Leonard. Delete this and then whenever those are put up, all confusion should end.