Generally, I steer clear of movies about movies but when Clint Eastwood is involved and hunting in Africa is involved, well, pop some corn, sweetheart, I'm gonna prop my feet on the coffee table.Eastwood is so convincing in this role I plumb forgot he is my favorite western character, Josey Wales.I suspect the fact that John wanted to kill an elephant turned some viewers off and that is a shame for they missed a great performance, in which no elephants were killed. I have been a hunter all my life and when John said, "It's a passion that's beyond you. I'd have to explain to you the sound of the wind and the smell of the woods. I'd have to create you all over again. . . .and stamp out those years you spent on the dirty pavement in cramped shoes." we connected and there was a tear in my eye.And this is what a true artist does...he relays an emotion, from the writer to the reader; from the singer to the listener; from the actor to the viewer. I predict White Hunter Black Heart will gain popularity as time goes by.

One of the most intellectual and unknown films from actor and director Clint Eastwood , at the height of his best work as acting as filmmaking , and based on real events . A thinly fictionalized account of a legendary movie director, the world famous film director John Huston , whose desire to hunt down an animal turns into a grim situation , he has gone to Africa to make his next movie , but he is more interested in hunting large tusked elephants that shooting the movie he came to Africa to produce . Eastwood stars , directs and produces this original adventure film that alternates with great skill and unique perspective, a recreation of the early stages in the filming "The African Queen" and the obsession of its director to hunt elephant tusks in the middle portentous African Savannah . Very good performance by Eastwood who gives a self-destructive portrait of the protagonist John Wilson , a facade for John Huston's The African Queen. High performances filled with silences , glances, gestures , supported by an excellent support cast as Jeff Fahey's character is based on Peter Viertel, George Dzundza's on Sam Spiegel ; Marisa Berenson's on Katharine Hepburn and Richard Vanstone's on Humphrey Bogart . Even Katharine Hepburn contested the accuracy of the film . Interesting script with writing credits from prestigious screenwriters as Peter Viertel (novel's author and married to Deborah Kerr), Burt Kennedy and James Bridges , his writing on the screenplay became the final film work . This interesting film results to be an extraordinary building a peculiar character inspired in John Huston as an obstinate, contrary director who'd rather hunt elephants than takes care of his crew or movie . Nobody is better than a great actor-turned-best director, Clint Eastwood , to impersonate one of the greatest American filmmakers with portentous personality and special character . The particularities regarding his crafty , eccentric womanizer and "bon vivant" found in Houston turned to be perfectly incarnated into the wonderful interpretation of Eastwood who provides everything needed to display the charisma and genius of this character . Based on 1953's accounts written by Peter Viertel and well played by Jeff Fahey referring his experiences working on James Agee's screenplay . The small steamboat that they used in the whitewater scene is the same boat that Humphrey Bogart's character captained in The African Queen . Furthermore , the picture displays an atmospheric and sensible musical score by Lennie Niehaus , Eastwood's usual . Colorful cinematography by Jack N. Green filmed on location in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe , Zambia and in studio : Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK . Rating : Good , better than average .

This was strangely unsatisfying. Unlike a lot of people I actually enjoy novels and films about filmmaking despite the fact that most of them - think Mank's The Barefoot Contessa which goes astray once it abandons the filmmaking for the travails of Ava Gardner's marital problems with an impotent husband - are flawed. Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and Minnelli's The Bad And The Bautiful have still to be equalled let alone eclipsed and WHBH is not, alas, up to the task. Before he published the novel Peter Viertel was advised by several friends not least his best friend, Irwin Shaw, to give the characters names that were not transparent - John Wilson, Peter Verrill, etc - but failed to heed it. Whilst it's true enough that insiders would get it no matter what the characters were called - after all how many charismatic eccentric movie directors shot a major movie with two iconic stars on location in Africa in the early fifties (if you discount Mogambo, which had Three major stars anyway). Clint Eastwood is a highly competent actor-director, no question but not this time around.

And I'm not talking painting. White Hunter, Black Heart is an admirable failure, a film that tries vainly and unsuccessfully to peer into the complex genius of an artist. I call WHBH admirable because Clint Eastwood could not possibly have believed this movie would be a commercial success, yet he made it anyway. It is an actors' movie, a film designed to allow the director and his crew to experiment with a serious subject-and consequential themes--without worrying about the commercial side of the production.The movie is a failure because even with all the hard work from cast and crew, we ultimately don't much care if the movie on screen, a thinly veiled African Queen, gets made. From Eastwood's character on down, there just isn't an emotional bonding that makes the viewer stick to the screen with an adhesive caring. Instead, we get two hours of Clint doing a more humorous than serious John Huston impression.I didn't enjoy White Hunter, Black Heart. I didn't hate it either. Instead, I observed it, the way I observe some impressionist paintings. I can see the use of color, the vibrancy of the brush strokes, the composition, but the whole never gels.A lot of work with no heart-felt payoff.