It's probably fair to say that much of this successful film of its time has aged badly when looked back at from the present day. One now only feels abhorrence at the portrayal of rich, white big-game hunters shooting for sport wild beasts like hippopotami and antelopes as well as their casual and dismissive treatment of their native black African servants and even the promotion of bullfighting, although thankfully we don't get to see a kill in the ring. On a more abstract level, we're also served up the lionisation of a selfish, absorbed male at the expense of the adoring, beautiful and often wealthy women who throw themselves at his feet and stay there prostrate, even as he walks over them.
Okay, now I've got that out of my system, I readily appreciate that much of these faults lie in the simple fact that the film is adapted from a Hemingway short-story. It's obviously at least partly autobiographical in that we know of the author's own experiences in France, Spain and Africa as well as his experiencing war at first-hand on the battlefields of Europe in WWI.
However, if the central, dominating character of Harry Street is a cipher for Hemingway himself, I can't think that Gregory Peck was the right actor for the part. He fails to project any charm or charisma, imparts none of the writer's own avowed energy and is about as world-weary as today's paper. Of the three can't-live-with-him, can't-live-without-him females in his thrall, Ava Gardner probably comes off best but all three, including Susan Hayward and Hildegard Knef, have pretty thankless roles following and kow-towing to Harry's mood swings.
The film is beautifully shot but the staggered flashbacks irritate after a while and as for the "happy" ending, it's no wonder that the author himself so strongly disapproved of it.
Slow and lacking in dramatic tension, I rather wish an avalanche had come down on this production at an early stage in proceedings to save me enduring almost two hours of unremitting tedium.
Okay, now I've got that out of my system, I readily appreciate that much of these faults lie in the simple fact that the film is adapted from a Hemingway short-story. It's obviously at least partly autobiographical in that we know of the author's own experiences in France, Spain and Africa as well as his experiencing war at first-hand on the battlefields of Europe in WWI.
However, if the central, dominating character of Harry Street is a cipher for Hemingway himself, I can't think that Gregory Peck was the right actor for the part. He fails to project any charm or charisma, imparts none of the writer's own avowed energy and is about as world-weary as today's paper. Of the three can't-live-with-him, can't-live-without-him females in his thrall, Ava Gardner probably comes off best but all three, including Susan Hayward and Hildegard Knef, have pretty thankless roles following and kow-towing to Harry's mood swings.
The film is beautifully shot but the staggered flashbacks irritate after a while and as for the "happy" ending, it's no wonder that the author himself so strongly disapproved of it.
Slow and lacking in dramatic tension, I rather wish an avalanche had come down on this production at an early stage in proceedings to save me enduring almost two hours of unremitting tedium.