THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO

US, 1952, 114 Minutes, Colour.
Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Hildegarde Neff
Directed by Henry King

The Snows of Kilimanjaro was released in the early 1950s, a glamorous 20th Century-Fox? production with its key stars, Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward, supported by Ava Gardner.

This was a version of Ernest Hemingway's short story. Hemingway film versions had begun with A Farewell to Arms twenty years earlier. During the '40s there were versions of For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Macomber Affair (also with Gregory Peck). During the 1950s, especially from the mid-'50s on, there were more lavish Cinemascope productions of A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises. There was also a film version of The Old Man and the Sea.

Gregory Peck seems too straightforward to be a Hemingway hero. Rock Hudson and Tyrone Power in A Farewell To Arms and The Sun Also Rises offered more ambiguous central characters. Errol Flynn, at the end of his career, also appeared in The Sun Also Rises.

The Hemingway themes of the strong man confronting Nature in an African setting are to the fore. Direction is by veteran Henry King, who was to make The Sun Also Rises.

1. The emphasis of the title, Hemingway's novel? The African setting? The title and the allegory of the leopard?

2. The contribution of the colour, African locations, the background of Paris and Spain? The importance of the stars?

3. How much of the Hemingway mystique was communicated in the film? The nature of Hemingway's mystique? The hero, toughness? Men and women?

4. The structure of the film: the dying and the need for life, memory, the healing of memories, the feeling of failure, the discovery of the meaning of life? How dramatically effective?

5. What kind of man was Harry? Gregory Peck's heroic style? The American background, the international background, the man of the mind as the writer, the physical man as the hunter? How much sympathy for him in his dying?

6. The film's emphasis on memory and the meaning of memories? Death as the time for the recalling of memories?

7. The memory of Cynthia? As a woman, his meeting with her, Paris, the growth of love? The background of the baby, death, alcohol? The sense of failure? The significance of the meeting in Spain? Death? The Hemingway type of woman? The symbol of womanhood?

8. The contrast with Liz? Her type, work, background, love, the break with Harry? The impact on his life?

9. What was the effect of life, exile from America, the women on Harry? What did he need? Africa as the place to fulfil needs? The memory of Cynthia and Africa?

10. The encounter with Helen? Comparison with Cynthia? Helen as the stronger kind than Cynthia? The meaning of the marriage, the nature of love, Helen's support? Her role in Africa?

11. The physicality of the sickness? The nature of gangrene, the threat of death, the vigil, the need for amputation? The witchdoctor versus medicine? The hyena as real and as a symbol?

12. The optimism of the ending? Was it merited?

13. The exploration of Hemingway's themes of the nature of man and woman? The man of action and the man of the mind? The American man of the Twentieth Century?