Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Copyright 17 September 1952 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Rivoli: 18 September 1952. U.S. release: July 1953 (sic). U.K. release: 2 February 1953. Australian release: 18 December 1952. Sydney Opening at the Regent. 114 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Harry Street, an amazingly successful novelist, is near death at the foot of Kilimanjaro. Reviewing his life, particularly his thwarted romances with Cynthia and Liz, he decides to mend his ways, settle down with his third love, Helen, and even write something worthwhile.NOTES: Nominated for Academy Awards for Color Cinematography (won by The Quiet Man), and Color Art Direction (won by Moulin Rouge).Aided by a lavishly mounted publicity campaign which stressed the non-existent salacious qualities of the tedious script, the movie came in 3rd at the domestic box-office with a gross rentals take of $6½ million.Number 5 on the National Board of Review's American Ten Best of 1952. Best Actress of 1952, Susan Hayward (principally for her acting in With a Song In My Heart, but her performance in this one also influenced the voters) - Photoplay Gold Medal Award.COMMENT: Casey Robinson has reduced Hemingway to a wordy, sluggishly paced bore, hammily acted by Susan Hayward who is absolutely ridiculous as the distraught wife. Peck is likewise totally unbelievable and the other players are forced into an unequal struggle with their impossible characters. Leon Shamroy has tried to give the film a bit of atmospheric sheen and gloss (indeed the lighting is the film's best feature) but the plodding music score and Henry King's elephantine direction do not help. A bit of location footage (the stars stay firmly in the studio) helps but generally this is an overlong, long-winded, and decidedly dull disappointment.

I usually like old films and the title and cast of this one seemed a good bet. What a disappointment. Peck is grossly miscast - he's just not the gigolo he's portrayed, nor does he look like a man who's dying. Nor does 'Cynthia Green' convince me, even the name is too boring for the beautiful Ava Gardner. And the 'hunting' scene - sorry, standing in front of somebody else's adventure backdrop is again unconvincing as are the actual rhino shots, another time another place. The whole script is endlessly boring and I can't wait to get rid of it to the charity shop where I found it. And the 'Africans' - who are they kidding? 'What's he gonna do, sprinkle me with monkey dust?" Oh Lord, somebody please put him out of his misery and dismantle the set. The 'natives' did try to sound as though they'd learned their lines and that unconvincing chant with the luckless rhino head on a stretcher PULEASE! i don't know how painful gangrene is but Peck sure is bearing up well considering he only had his bandage changed but once and did he utter a sound when Hayward lanced the horrid green swelling? Nope, just looked his normal handsome self. Perhaps Humphrey Bogart might have managed this ponderously awful script better..but even he can't do miracles. The only one who deserved an Oscar was the hyena sniffing around the tent with a view to his next meal.

My only criticism of this wonderful 1952 film was that Susan Hayward did not get the Ava Gardner part. That being said, Gardner, for a change, gave a wonderful performance as the misguided wife of Gregory Peck. She was really a character out of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," as well.This terrific film explores life's meaning and generally those pictures are good ones, as we saw in 1946's "The Razor's Edge."Peck plays a writer consumed with work and success. This provides tragic results with Gardner, as we see the Spanish Civil War again in Hemingway's writings.Hayward, for a change is rather subdued for Hayward. She plays Helen, his second wife, who always felt that she was in competition with his first wife.

I was surprised to find most of this film version of Hemingway's short-story classic so tepid.Gregory Peck's character is a handsome devil concerned first and foremost about himself. His life has been a quest for fame, yet all his adventures as a writer have provided him with fodder that hasn't added up to much.The women he bedded along the way were mere pretty, powerless distractions. As the doctor tells Peck after Cynthia has miscarried: "Don't you people ever talk?" When they do, they don't actually hear.The most meaningful part of this film was its portrayal of man as a self-deluded creature whose end can come suddenly and ridiculously, as hyenas and vultures lie in wait."Let's not kid ourselves," drawls the cot-bound Harry, who had fancied himself such an alpha male. "A door can open suddenly into nothing. And death has been standing there all the while." Yet the characters fool themselves till the end.A very depressive view of the human condition.