L'affaire Macomber

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.

I did not read the short story, so i can only go by what i saw and heard in the movie. It is possible I missed some dialogue along the way that would tell me how long this couple ( Bennett and Preston ) were on the safari, for Peck's character to fall in love with Bennett, who showed a side of contempt of her husband in front of him...now that really should turn a man on, right? The leads do well in their parts, but it was Bennett that surprised me...she was really a 'bitch' as they say. I couldn't see her in this role as her usual natural Blond, but since her transformation of the Hedy Lamarr look ( she dyed her hair black ) cause she was enamored of the Hedy face, as millions of others had at that time, her career got a boost. That said, and the ambiguous ending made an interesting hour and a half for me.

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.

The writing team of Casey Robinson and Seymour Bennett adapted Ernest Hemingway's "the Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" into a solid screenplay which enlarged upon the subtle themes of the original. A wealthy couple(Robert Preston,Joan Bennett) arrive in East Africa ostensibly for a safari vacation but it soon becomes apparent that they are ill-matched and resentful of each other's failings.Their safari guide,Gregory Peck,attempting to conduct things professionally,becomes an unwilling spectator to their petty arguments and vicious insults.But as the party trek through the jungle in search of game the true personalities of the warring couple emerge playing havoc with Peck's sympathies and his growing interest in beautiful Bennett.An ironic twist of events await these adventurers as they pursue game more dangerous than they bargained for. An enriching score by Miklos Rozsa,the superb direction by Hungarian director Zoltan Korda,and fine performances by the 3 principals(especially Preston's paranoid tycoon) all serve the viewer with a gripping drama.

Taking into account the shortcomings of the period: rear projection and non location filming this is a solid adventure film. Really a three person chamber piece the success or failure of the film rests on the performances of its leads and there it's on solid ground. Both Peck and Preston do good work but the standout is the under-appreciated Joan Bennett. Always at her best as a conflicted character here as a woman turned into a hard article by a bad marriage though subtle gestures and sly looks she gives the film a tough grounded center and she has rarely looked so beautiful. Not having read the book I'm not sure how closely it follows but the film does have a Hemingway feel.