@Bill Chaplik posted:Watched the TCM version yesterday after having seen the movie before and they botched the end by cutting it. The version shown went right to "The End" after yardmaster Carl Buckley strangled his wife Vicki in a Pullman compartment because she was trying to leave him. In the full version, the killer yardmaster is being chased through a train yard and in his panic steps out right in front of a mainline movement with the inevitable result. TCM's hacked version leaves the viewer wondering if justice was ever served or if the bad guy simply took off for parts unknown.
I am finding no references to an alternate ending (though I will admit to not having spent hours and hours looking). A review in the New York Times at the time of the movie's release would seem to match the ending that was on TCM. The AFI synopsis is what was shown on TCM the other night:
https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/51233
The 1938 version by Jean Renoir, "La Bête Humaine," sounds like it has an ending closer to the one you describe.
David
