Passione selvaggia

This is a very turpid Hemingway story, which he must have told out of his own experience as a qualified game hunter in Africa, here acting as a guide (Gregory Peck) for a married couple (Robert Preston and Joan Bennett), the man being very rich and bringing his wife to Africa in a vain effort to impress on her and save their marriage. Of course it turns the other way around. The film starts with his corpse being carried off an airplane and Gregory escorting a very depressed wife down from it, then concentrating on Gregory to deal with the aftermath of the matter in the shape of hangover thoughts, turning to a long flashback, which is the major part of the film. Was it an accident or was it murder? Neither Joan Bennett nor Gregory Peck can anser that question, which will follow you out.

Hunting wild animals, especially when they are of the noble kind like lions, must be perhaps the most despicable sport in the world, especially today, when so many of those finest animals are facing extinction, but this film shows clearly the rotten turpidity and destructive meaninglessness of it as a sport. There is some comfort in that nowadays safari tourists don't shoot animals except by cameras, but there are still abominable poachers around, that should be shot themselves, everyone of them.

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.

THE MACOMBER AFFAIR has to be rated a success for the mere fact that it finally brings a Hemingway story to the screen pretty much intact and the way he wrote it. GREGORY PECK may not be the perfect choice to play the guide escorting a quarrelsome JOAN BENNETT and ROBERT PRESTON on a safari, but he acquits himself well enough in the role.

I found it a lot more satisfying than the later SNOWS OF KILIMINJARO in which Peck again was cast in the lead as a Hemingway white hunter in Africa. Although that film had the advantage of Technicolor and more expensive trappings, THE MACOMBER AFFAIR achieves more of an edge by being photographed in somber B&W, even though some of the stock footage and backgrounds are obviously studio shots.

Bennett is fascinating as the woman full of scorn for her husband and gradually showing her interest in Peck while Preston's resentment begins to turn paranoid. Miklos Rozsa's score gives it a film noir feeling despite the jungle setting--and it becomes a war of nerves before the satisfying conclusion.

Well worth watching for some interesting performances.

This film deserves a DVD release. Excellent script, direction, and editing carry the film into Hemingway's world. The results are excellent. The three leads do very well with their parts. I particularly liked Joan Bennett. Her cynicism and brazen effrontery towards husband Preston held my attention as she carried on an obvious affair with Peck. The dynamic between the three stars smolders across the screen as Preston attempts to "prove" his manhood by killing wild beasts. In true Hemingway style the "big game" adventure turns into one of more human proportions. Pretty bold stuff considering the Production Code was still in full swing. Reginald Denny plays with authority in a minor role.

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.