Steineded
How sad is this?
Matialth
Good concept, poorly executed.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
Applause Meter
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.
edwagreen
The same year that he made the magnificent "Gentleman's Agreement," Gregory Peck portrayed a safari tourist guide in this 1947 film.Joan Bennett is really something as she portrays a woman apparently trapped in a loveless marriage. Bennett is constantly condescending to her husband, Robert Preston, who gives a terrific performance as the emotionally scared man, afraid of life, a coward, who seems to attain manhood, only to meet up with a tragic end.Peck allows his kindly image to continue as the safari leader who falls for Bennett; his part called for more rugged individualism and would have best suited Robert Mitchum.The ending is questionable. Does the Bennett character get exonerated or imprisoned? What were the real circumstances that led her to pull the trigger?
sol
****SPOILERS**** It's in the early dawn hours when an airplane with the body of rich tourist and safari hunter Francis Macomber, Robert Preston, lands at Nairobi Airport that we get the story of what exactly happened to him and how he was killed. Going out hunting cape buffalo with his white hunter guide Robert Wilson, Gregory Peck, and man or macho man hating wife Margaret, Joan Bennett, Francis ended up with a bullet in his back. That while trying to hold off together with Wilson a wounded charging 1,200 pound cape buffalo. In just how Francis ended up that way we go into a long flashback that had to do with his martial problems with Margaret who couldn't stand the very sight of him. Being a coward at heart Francis loved to bully around those who couldn't fight back. But at the same time he looked or sucked up to those who were in positions of power over him. Right away Margaret started to make eyes at the handsome and courageous Robert Wilson in him being everything that her wimpy husband Francis wasn't. Yet at the same time in being a women she hated Wilson for going out in the bush or savanna and gunning down helpless wild animals not for food or protection but just for the sport, and getting paid to do it, of it. Francis who screwed up the hunt for a 400 pound lion by not putting it down with a kill shot later, in tracking the beast down, wet his pants and panicked when the injured lion, that Wilson put down, charged at him with his disgusted wife Margaret not far from the scene. Now more then ever trying to show both Margaret & Robert Wilson what a real man he is Francis was determined to gun down much bigger game to prove to them and everyone else his worth as a both fearless game hunter and macho man.****SPOILERS**** It was at the cape buffalo hunt that Francis did in fact prove to himself as well as Robert Wilson that he's got what it takes but at the same time took a bullet in his back killing him! And that bullet was fired by non other then his now hunting cape buffalo and at the same time macho hating wife Margaret. With Wilson together with the two native guides Kongoni & Abdullah, Earl Smih & Hassan Said, present at the scene of the shooting it was their testimony that would in the end absolve or convict Margaret of her husband Francis' accidental death or cold blooded murder. Margaret, who was already cleared of all charges, who's to tell in what she knows about her husband's tragic death is seen going to testify to an follow up inquiry board but we never get to see or hear what she says. The movie ends abruptly as if the movie projector was shut off and not having the usual "The End" splashed across the screen or even the film's ending credits.
telegonus
This Zoltan Korda adaptation of Hemingway's bitter tale of big game hunting and marital infidelity is the best movie adaptation of this author's work I have ever seen. Only Gregory Peck seems miscast in what is basically a Trevor Howard part, but this doesn't bring the movie down, it merely limits it. As the superficially charming, boyish, gregarious and basically not very nice Macomber, Robert Preston is brilliant, and he gives a daring, emotionally open performance. Joan Bennett is good as his wife, better than Peck but not perfect casting, either. What makes the movie work is its nasty story, and Casey Robinson's excellent and correct interpretation of it. The Hemingway mood, macho and misogynist, and misanthropic more than anything else, is caught to such perfection one might almost suspect that he was technical adviser (he wasn't). British East Africa is given the Tarzan treatment on screen, typical of the forties but for some difficult to take now. I find that it works, as Tarzan and Hemingway weren't a million miles apart in temperament and values, though I imagine that Tarzan was nicer fellow to get along with.
