What song does Mario Lanza sing over the end credits?
Lanza’s return over the end credits with “You’ll Never Walk Alone” provides a powerful backdrop (its spiritual tone concluding the reverential thread) that elicits a particularly ironic pathos after the desolation of the final scenes. And it forms a symmetric counterpart to the film’s opening hymn. This recursive symmetry at the film’s beginning and end is also reflected in the key ‘ship’ scenes (see 3.1.16.13). The silent epilogue preceeding the final song informs the viewer of the girls’ sentence: incarceration in separate institutions and eventual release on the condition that they never have contact with each other again. And there is a haunting residue that lingers after the film: what if Mario Lanza is singing on behalf of Honora? What if this is her promise to the girls?
