The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Gregory Peck leads an all-star cast in "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," a big 1952 film directed by Henry King and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. With a cast that includes Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward, Hildegarde Neff and Leo J. Carroll, and a story based on a story by Ernest Hemingway, one expects something more - much more - than what is delivered by this plodding film.

Peck plays a writer with a severe leg infection. As he lays in Africa waiting for a transport while his wife (Hayward) cares for him, he believes he's dying. He goes over his past life and loves - a girl he disappoints in his youth, then Cynthia (Gardner) the love of his life, followed by Neff, and Hayward, whom he mistakes for Cynthia when he first meets her.

Henry King mixes some beautiful scenery with stock footage of Africa. Since it's Hemingway, the movie has a macho sensibility - a lot of hunting, drinking, implied sex, and a bullfight. It's only in the last couple of scenes that the film's energy picks up - but by then, it's too late. The performances are okay - strangely, Gardner's character seems the most fleshed out. That isn't saying much - one gets the impression a lot was cut, leaving holes in characterizations and the viewer completely detached from them. Altogether, a disappointing experience.

Director Henry King is what keeps this movie from getting 10 stars. Yet, despite his poor cinematography, poor directing and failure to take advantage of scenic backdrops (yet they shine through occasionally), the cast and the story save the film.

Peck portrays former Chicago Times journalist Harry Street, a fictional character penned by Ernest Hemmingway, portraying a strong glimpse himself . . . a bit ego-centric while feigning humility and modesty. Peck is superb at bringing Harry Street to life . . . and Hemmingway is always looming in the background of Street's character, like a phantom . . . the boozing womanizer, masking his insecurities with alcohol, egotism, aloofness toward other's feelings and needs. The beautiful, sexy, gorgeous Ava Gardner, one of the VERY few Hollywood starlets who could actually act, gives an excellent performance as the emotionally insecure, very dependent, sexually charged, less than moral, love of his life. Co-dependency could have been based on her character, Cynthia Green. Cynthia was too insecure to let Street live his life . . . Street was too self-centered and aloof to recognize Cynthia's emotional needs . . . very Hemmingway!

As he lay delirious on a bed in Africa, from a thorn scratch infection, snow covered Mt. Kilimanjaro looming in the background, Street recalls the lost loves of his past years, with Cynthia dominating his memories, as his one true love. His current wife, Helen, portrayed by Susan Hayward, tries desperately to find her place in his life, always feeling herself in the shadow of Cynthia and a later love, Countess Liz, played by Hildegard Neff, a selfish and insecure socialite, desperate to hang onto Street. Feverishly, Street flows in and out of consciousness, the scenes from his memories playing out in his mind, as Helen compassionately wipes his sweaty brow and tries to care for him, as he pushes her away.

This is a good film! Hemmingway fans should receive it well, as should fans of Peck and Gardner.

First, I found this movie, like most here, boring. Mainly a Susan fan, but i found her role was almost secondary to Ava's. I think Ava's part was more complex. I could not imagine why Susan chose to be in this one at all, until I read somewhere that she only accepted this role, cause Hedy Lamarr, her pal, was to play the Ava role, but Hedy turned it down, mainly cause of salary dispute. Hedy was in demand at that time because of her big comeback in "Samson And Delilah". Unfortunately, Susan had to go through her commitment. Aside from that, I felt that the flashbacks were intrusive to the story line, and so I got lost along the way. BTW, Peck looked bored as well.

I saw this as a kid and thought it was an OK adventure movie. But seeing it again in middle age just blew me away. It really is the story of a man's life: looking back on lost opportunities, failed loves, and (as it's so beautifully described in the script) "losing the scent" in your life's direction. Gardner is mesmerizing; Hayward is dynamic. The Bernard Herrman score hits the mark again. And the set decoration and cinematography are superlative examples of the studio system at its most artistic.

Of course, the fact that jazz immortal Benny Carter plays tenor sax during a Paris party scene adds an enormous amount of cool points to this movie for me!

Many critics and fans love this movie, the best of all Hemingway stories on film perhaps. I think this film is so because it is honest, somewhat autobiographical and derived from a splendid and mature short story of enduring fame.  The plot line of the film is simple.  In a fever because of an accident, Harry lies perhaps dying, tended by his third wife in a camp in Africa.  His delirium causes him, through a long night spent waiting for help to arrive, to relive in his mind the triumphs, disappointments, sorrows, loves and moments of his somewhat unsatisfactory life as an author. He is bitter and takes it out on his wife; but he does not KNOW that he is going to die--so he continues to pester, ask questions, make demands, and study the reverie in his thoughts--which viewers see as extended flashbacks. As Harry Street, Gregory Peck is mostly very good indeed, exactly right for the role not of Hemingway but of a man who had lived what the author describes in the storyline.  As the wives, Hildegarde Neff is cold, beautiful and skilled, showing us how she tried to control Harry and protesting that she had loved him as much as she could.  The first wife, Ava Gardner, plays her part admirably as a young, not-important woman who wants domesticity not excitement (as Harry does), wrecks their union to have a child and drinks herself to death. The third wife, played amiably and with intelligence by Susan Hayward seems almost the product of Harry's training. And if finally she has come to understand, accept and even want his way of life, we assume that finally all will be well at the end.  The medical help arrives; and Harry will live to write more; he wants in fact very much to live again. There are amazingly enjoyable scenes in this big-appearing film--bullfights, a wartime scene, Mediterranean yachts and villas, Paris, and Kenya; and more. it is beautiful, moving and often thought-provoking.  Also in the cast are veterans Torin Thatcher, Leo G. Carroll and Marcel Dalio, all doing superbly.  Henry King directed; Casey Robinson wrote the script; and Leon Shamroy provided stunningly beautiful cinematography.  Harry may feel in the film that he has compromised something to become a success; but he still talks about the snow leopard once found frozen on Mt. Kilimanjaro at 18,000+ feet. He wonders what the leopard was seeking at that altitude--Hemingway's and Harry's parable for human mental curiosity and the sometimes perverse desire to invest much to achieve eventual greatness.  The film may not quite measure up to this famous conception;  but it is grand in mental scale and interesting throughout.