JohnHowardReid 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.

HotToastyRag Good heavens, this movie is boring! I don't know what was wrong with screenwriter Casey Robinson, or the people who read his script and didn't suggest a serious edit or rewrite, but if you can make it through this two hour film without nodding off, you deserve a medal. I couldn't.Gregory Peck is wounded, and the entire movie flashes back and forth between him being nursed by Susan Hayward and his reflections of his romance with Ava Gardner. Susan Hayward is one of my all-time favorite actresses, so if a movie of hers is terrible, there has to be a reason. I blame the screenplay, but you can blame Ernest Hemingway's original story if you like. Greg is written to be a wishy-washy, selfish, and annoying. It's tough to imagine Gregory Peck being unlikable, but believe me, he is in this movie. Even though he's wounded and sometimes delirious, he's just unlikable. I found myself wanting Susan Hayward to give up on him and let him fester.I realize Ava Gardner was a sex symbol, and that both on and off screen, men couldn't keep their hands off her, but I never understood why. I never found her appealing, so I didn't know why Greg kept dreaming of her when he had Susan Hayward sitting right next to him! If you want to see Greg and Ava, watch The Great Sinner instead. And if you want to see Greg and Susan, watch David and Bathsheba instead. There's really no reason to watch this one, unless you misplaced your sleeping pills.

sheilamaclean30 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.

Steffi_P At the time he was writing Ernest Hemingway was regarded as one of America's finest literary assets, and virtually all his work was given a prestigious screen adaptation at some point in the 40s and 50s. Short on action but full of introspection, often set in exotic locations, his stories typically made for slow-moving but visually stunning motion pictures."Slow-moving" and "visually stunning" could also loosely describe the style of director Henry King, who helmed this version of Hemingway's short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro. King was by no means dull, and he never got hung up on imagery, but he certainly encouraged a thoughtful style from his cast and had a love of natural beauty. His shots of the outdoors are unique; never expansive, empty landscapes but always layered, detailed compositions that show off shape and contour. There is always a sense of closeness and intimacy in King's pictures, evident from the first few shots of The Snows of Kilimanjaro – a close-up of Gregory Peck, the shadow of a tree branch sweeping across his face, cut with close-ups of him watching the flight of a vulture – a haunting and compelling introduction to the story.And Peck is very much the right man for this sort of thing – deep, serious, with an air of melancholy, but also handsome and charismatic. And of course, a very fine actor. He handles the lengthy stretches of dialogue well, putting character into Hemingway's words. And his women here are equal matches, especially Susan Hayward, who is all quiet confidence. From her voice to the way her arms lie as she sits next to Peck, everything says here is a strong-willed woman, every bit an equal partner in her relationship with Peck. And every bit an attractive woman too. One thing that The Snows of Kilimanjaro suffers from however is a lack of really outstanding supporting players.I haven't read the original Hemingway story on which this is based. Apparently the central theme is supposedly Harry Street's sense of dissatisfaction with his own writing. However, whether it is differences in this adaptation or simply my own impression of it, I was struck far more by Street's rocky love life, in particular the series of disillusioned women he leaves behind him. It is to me the epitome of 1950s melodrama, from the stabbing score of Alfred Newman to the searing shot of Peck and Ava Gardner kissing before the stark backdrop of a tree. And it seems this is how the American public saw it too. Despite its hard-going literary roots, it became the third highest-grossing picture of the year.