The term "bluebird ending," which has mostly fallen out of use, refers to the optimistic finale of a film that defies the logic of the story. In the good old days it was not unknown for a Hollywood studio to turn out two versions of a movie— a happy end for us American yahoos and an unhappy one for European distribution to presumably more sophisticated audiences. A few years ago, when a remarkable retro of rare pre-Soviet Russian films started making the rounds, there was fascinating evidence that quite the opposite was true during the era of czarist cinema— call it the... More >>>