The Ernest Hemingway Film Collection (20th Century Fox)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ (C- on Arms) Films: B- (B on Sun)
Adapting
novels to film is tough, with many examples of “creative” changes made for a
multitude of reasons. In the case of
Ernest Hemingway, reflecting his personal thoughts and ideas represents
additional challenges, 20th Century Fox dug in and took on the man
and his work at least five times, as The
Ernest Hemingway Film Collection demonstrates. This new set offers the following films:
Under My Skin (1950) is nicely helmed by
director Jean Negulesco and stars John Garfield as a banned jockey, who has
left the U.S. to pull the same dirty tricks in Europe. Not necessarily a Film Noir, it does have a
gangster (Luther Adams) he crossed who is so mad, he is tracking him overseas
and does have a woman in his life who complicates things, but she is not a
typical Femme Fatale in the least.
Garfield even tries some redemption moves, but the Noir elements do not
always cohere with the Hemingway aesthetic, which is often more melodramatic
and opposes the “dark fate” of Noir with his own ideas of individual
determinism. Fascinating and works more
than not. Extras include a fine feature
length audio commentary with Anthony Slide, stills, trailer, restoration
comparison and fine featurette Racing
With Fate: John Garfield Under My Skin.
The Snows Of Kilimanjaro (1952) has been floating around
in some lame copies for a long time on DVD (including one we got), but Fox has
the original elements and have done a decent restoration job in this love
triangle epic with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward in the 1920s as
Peck’s character reflects on his life as he lies dying in the title
location. One of director Henry King’s
most noteworthy films for the studio, it was a huge critical and commercial
success. Seeing it in this better copy,
one can finally see why when movie starts were stars. Extras include a very welcome feature length
audio commentary by Patricia King Hanson & Frank Thompson, stills, trailer,
restoration comparison, A Conversation With Henry King, A Conversation With
screenplay writer Casey Robinson and fine featurette The Snows Of Zanuck: The Making Of Kilimanjaro.
The Sun Also Rises (1957) brings Henry King back to
Hemingway material as well as Ava Gardner) and of all the films here, this is
the most remarkable. Back to 1920s
Paris, Tyrone Power is impressive as U.S. veteran Jake Barnes, whose war injury
has damaged him sexually. Loved by Lady
Brett Ashley (Gardner) who cannot love him back, she become the love object and
obsession of an alcoholic (Errol Flynn), a writer (Eddie Albert) and another
lover (Mel Ferrer) all of whom threaten to destroy each other more. Even a young Robert Evans in his brief acting
is very good as a bullfighter in this Grade A studio gem that was very bold in
all the mature themes and situations it implies and with a classiness that is
worthy of the book. Fox and Zanuck were
serious about this and backed it 100%.
Wish we saw this kind of production more often. Extras include another fine feature length
audio commentary by Patricia King Hanson & Frank Thompson, stills, trailer,
restoration comparison, A Conversation With Henry King and two fine featurettes:
Hemingway On Film and The Old Men & The Bulls: The Making Of
The Sun Also Rises.
A Farewell To Arms (1957) is a much more
melodramatic film with soldier Rock Hudson falling for nun Jennifer Jones. Though Ben Hecht wrote this and Charles Vidor
directed, I was surprised how sappy and melodramatic this was, down to Vittorio
De Sica as a major and good supporting performances by Oskar Homolka and
Mercedes McCambridge. Maybe Laurence
Stallings original play was soapy, but this film did not have to be this
unintentionally funny. It was still a
hit and in some ways is a camp classic.
At least the studio went all out for it.
Extras are few here and include a trailer and three Fox Movietone News
segments.
Adventures Of A Young Man (1967) is the late entry of the
five and because it came out during great social change, may not get the credit
it deserves. Richard Beymer is Nick
Adams, a character Hemingway wrote often about and is assumed somewhat based on
himself (and not the B-movie actor of the same name) alive back in 1916! He gets involved with all kinds of people and
eventually in WWI. Episodic as you would
expect, it is directed by the great Martin Ritt (already established as great
with Hud) and reunites him with Paul
Newman. The rest of the supporting cast
includes Diane Baker, Arthur Kennedy, Ricardo Montalban, Susan Strasberg,
Jessica Tandy, Eli Wallach, Simon Oakland and an uncredited Sharon Tate. Extras include the third very thorough a fine
feature length audio commentary by Patricia King Hanson & Frank Thompson,
stills, trailer, restoration comparison and three featurettes: Remembering Ernest: A.E. Hotchner’s
Adventures With Hemingway, Papa’s
Last Days and A.E. Hotchner &
Paul Newman: A Legacy Of Charity.
A solid
set of films overall as one would hope for Hemingway, fans and the interested
will not be disappointed. Joseph
LaShelle shot Skin, as 1.33 X 1 film
and the only black and white in the set.
It looks good for its age and has some moments of detail and depth from
the restoration. Charles G. Clarke and
Leon Shamroy co-shot the 1.33 X 1 Snows,
which is the only film in the set released in three-strip dye-transfer
Technicolor. This transfer does not
always show that vibrancy, but is a big improvement over other transfers out
there. The remaining films are here in
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 transfer, shot in original CinemaScope and
printed in color by DeLuxe, the lab Fox invented so they did not need
Technicolor.
Leo Tover
lensed Sun, Piero Portalupi, Oswald
Morris & an uncredited James Wong Howe lensed Arms and Lee Garmes lensed Young
Man. All are a bit soft and the
color is improved, yet not as vibrant as DeLuxe could always be. All benefit from being upgraded, but it may
take Blu-ray to really show off the benefits of the work done here.
Most of the
films are in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, though Skin and Snows were
originally monophonic and Dolby 2.0 Mono is also included. Sun
has the best audio with Dolby 4.0 with no 2.0 Stereo option, Arms has Dolby 2.0 with Pro Logic
surrounds and Young Man has Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo that sounds more authentic than the early films. Daniel Amfitheatrof’s score for Skin is interesting just for being
different than a typical drama score, if not spectacularly so. Snows has an even more interesting
score by Bernard Herrmann. Sun features a score by the underrated
Hugo Friedhofer. Arms comes with a score by the interesting Mario Nascimbene and Young Man has Franz Waxman doing one of
his later scores to good effect.
But lists
can only begin to show what you get.
Whether you have read the books, will read them or never read them, the
films are interesting and ironically show the rise and fall of the Classical
Hollywood Studio System, as well as who literature is variously treated. If you have never sent these films, you
should. They are musts for anyone who
claims to know anything about films.
- Nicholas Sheffo