Every time Harry Street (Gregory Peck) starts to light up a cigarette in this film, it seems like a beautiful woman pops out of nowhere and brazenly sticks her ciggy into the flame too. Must be nice to radiate that kind of sex appeal. Little do the ladies know, Harry has an overwhelming personality. It's so strong that his true love, Cyn (Ava Gardener), doesn't want to tell him she's pregnant because it will slow him down. You see he bounces from continent to continent looking for stories for his novels.
The story consists mostly of a series of flashbacks by Street as he lays badly wounded on a cot in Africa. He has a gangrenous leg caused by a minor wound he let fester. He is married and being tended to by a beautiful woman, played by Susan Hayward, whom he cares nothing about. In fact, near the end, he tells her "I've never really seen you before". That's because it's all been about Harry and whatever Harry wanted. For example, he thinks nothing of endangering her and two natives by maneuvering a canoe too close to a group of hippos. One of the natives is mauled and dies in the incident.
This film is a little too overly dramatic for my taste. The last 20 -30 minutes of the movie, after all the major flashbacks are done and his health takes a turn for the worst, seems to drag on and on. The director should have had Harry blow his brains out, as Hemingway did.
The story consists mostly of a series of flashbacks by Street as he lays badly wounded on a cot in Africa. He has a gangrenous leg caused by a minor wound he let fester. He is married and being tended to by a beautiful woman, played by Susan Hayward, whom he cares nothing about. In fact, near the end, he tells her "I've never really seen you before". That's because it's all been about Harry and whatever Harry wanted. For example, he thinks nothing of endangering her and two natives by maneuvering a canoe too close to a group of hippos. One of the natives is mauled and dies in the incident.
This film is a little too overly dramatic for my taste. The last 20 -30 minutes of the movie, after all the major flashbacks are done and his health takes a turn for the worst, seems to drag on and on. The director should have had Harry blow his brains out, as Hemingway did.