I haven't read Hemingway's short story, "The Brief Happy Life of Francis Macomber", for years but as I recall it was one of his best. The earth didn't move, but the story was pretty good.One of the reasons I think it was so good was that it left unsaid many of the things that Gregory Peck, as Wilson the safari guide, pours out at the end, as if to an audience of elementary school kids.Papa had a little thing he used to say. If you sold a script to Hollywood, you drove up to the state line and stopped. The producers stopped on the other side of the line. You threw them the script and they threw you the check.Peck's character of Wilson, he of the beautiful red face, as Mrs. Macomber, Joan Bennet, calls him, was based on the same character who played Isaak Dineson's husband in "Out of Africa." Not that it matters much but in real life the guide, I think his name was something like Percy or Percival, was British, and the script gives Peck some British locutions that sound odd coming from a man raised in La Jolla.Joan Bennet is good as the bitchy wife who dominates and insults her husband, Robert Preston. Preston doesn't overplay the cowardly and henpecked bit. He simply looks too masculine to be such a wimp, so it was a good choice.The story does enter boy's book territory though when Preston first runs from a charging lion, then finds that shooting a couple of buffalo has revitalized him and turned him into a wholly changed man, the master of his fate. It take sixty seconds to make him born again. But that's not Preston's fault. The weakness is in the script. Yes, it's true. Killing wild animals who mean you no harm makes a man out of you.Also left out of the script -- because how could it possibly have been put in? -- is Hemingway's showing us the thoughts of the wounded lion who charges and is shot dead. (The lion on the screen really is shot dead.) The movie could be interpreted as an insult to womanhood everywhere, but I found it a tense, concise, black-and-white movie that was a big improvement over some other Hemingway stories that were splashed across the screen in stupendous, colossal, magniloquent color and hectaphonic sound.The score is by Miklos Rozsa, all of whose scores sounded alike, no matter what the subject. Well, I suppose he had two modalities -- dramatic and Biblical.

Based on a Hemingway short story. And Hemingway knew how to craft stories that epitomized realms of male supremacy. His world was one of combat, African safaris, bull rings… all the places where "real men" constantly had to prove masculine courage. Women were an accessory… the old "Can't live with them, Can't live without them" philosophy.In this movie, all that comes across in spades. Robert Preston is Francis Mocamber, led around by the nose on a chain by his wife Margaret, played by Joan Bennett. They hire great white hunter Robert Wilson, portrayed by Gregory Peck, to guide them on safari. In the Mocamber marriage it's the wife who wears both the pants and the skirt. The trip is no picnic in the jungle but a miserable, forced emotional trek where the two men just get worn out by Margaret's constant authoritarianism and general bitchiness. Tragedy ensues…who woulda guessed it?!Not much more to be said. If you subscribe to the Hemingway universe, this movie is for you.

In a certain sense this IS the most faithful filming of a Hemingway story. For one thing, it's probably the only one of his short stories that could be made into a full-length movie without adding some creative padding. (Cf. the first movie version of "The Killers," for instance: it's faithful almost to the letter for the first fifteen minutes, but then has to veer off into fantasy land to fill up the rest of the two hours.)But in another sense, "The Macomber Affair" misses the point or theme entirely in the way in which a certain element of the plot turns out. This has to do with the relationship between two of the characters. (If I revealed this change I would probably be including a "spoiler," so will refrain from telling any details. If you ever get a chance to see the movie, you'll understand what I mean.) Furthermore, EVERY character is miscast, though I must say that all three of the Principal actors do their best with the parts they've been thrown. Probably the most interesting thing about the film is that it deals quite directly with Margot's promiscuity--amazing for a movie of its time period. Despite my reservations, I highly recommend the film, and think it would be well worth re-issuing on video or DVD.

The writing team of Casey Robinson and Seymour Bennett adapted Ernest Hemingway's "the Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" into a solid screenplay which enlarged upon the subtle themes of the original. A wealthy couple(Robert Preston,Joan Bennett) arrive in East Africa ostensibly for a safari vacation but it soon becomes apparent that they are ill-matched and resentful of each other's failings.Their safari guide,Gregory Peck,attempting to conduct things professionally,becomes an unwilling spectator to their petty arguments and vicious insults.But as the party trek through the jungle in search of game the true personalities of the warring couple emerge playing havoc with Peck's sympathies and his growing interest in beautiful Bennett.An ironic twist of events await these adventurers as they pursue game more dangerous than they bargained for. An enriching score by Miklos Rozsa,the superb direction by Hungarian director Zoltan Korda,and fine performances by the 3 principals(especially Preston's paranoid tycoon) all serve the viewer with a gripping drama.