Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man (1962) At long last. I've calculated 60 years to finally catch up with this movie.......since I first heard about it when a mere lad in junior high school.....
I blame the junior high library of all things......no great shakes as a library but that damn place turned me into even a more of a burgeoning movie buff than I was already becoming......
In the farthest dusty corner of this library were stacks and stacks of a monthly pamphlet called "The Green Sheet", which featured a complete list of 1 to 2 paragraph reviews of all the month's new feature film releases. These reviews all appeared as mostly non judgmental and informative, like a casual shopping guide.
(Years later, I found out the pamphlet was put out primarily for educators, community leaders and other authorities by the mighty MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) The idea was to use the publication as a way to stave off every little town in the USA from starting its own film censorship board.....an issue later solved by the creation of the rating system)
So the good ole "Green Sheet" was where I first heard about "Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man", but by the time I came upon that particular issue, the film's theatrical run was over and done with........(and remember, we're talking about the Jurassic era before DVDs, Blu-Rays, Cable and Streaming......)
I know what you're asking. Was it worth the wait?
Uh.......Nah. Not really.
And that's a damn shame, since this film was presented as a powerhouse dramatic epic, with well known actors, a high literary pedigree and weighing in at almost 2 and a half hours.
Taken from Ernest Hemingway's collection of 'Nick Adams' stories, the film is exactly that......a rambling collection of short stories about the travels of a callow, naive young man who goes in search of life's experiences.
And of course, ends up forever changed for it.
Richard Beymer, fresh of his success as the leading doomed heartthrob of "West Side Story" is young Nick, hungry to leave his little lakeside Michigan town, see the big wide world and write about it......much to the disapproval of his weakling father (Arthur Kennedy) and his domineering mother (Jessica Tandy).
And off he goes to ride the rails to New York City, until a brakeman sends him flying off the train with a sucker punch. From there he encounters a sad, pathetic wandering duo....The Battler, a brain-damaged prize fighter played by an almost unrecognizable Paul Newman and the battler's kindly black caretaker manager (Juano Hernandez).
Next up comes what I guess constitutes the film's one attempt at comic relief, a slapstick-y meeting with a drunken vaudevillian (Dan Dailey and his long suffering partner (Fred Clark). From these guys, he scores passage to NYC, where newspapers have no use for an inexperienced kid with dreams of becoming a journalist.
Then the film finally arrives at its primary sequence......where Nick, aching for the kind of experience a newspaper editor told him he'd need as a writer, volunteers as an ambulance driver for the Italian army......right in the midst of the world's first global war. (Yes indeed, we're off to "A Farewell To Arms" territory.....)
Thrust into the thick of World War I combat, a grievously wounded Nick comes under the care of a sweet, gentle Italian nurse (Susan Strasberg).......and finally gains the defining life events he so long sought out......physical pain, overwhelming true love and crushing tragedy.
I wish I could report that this entire lengthy, rambling collection of stories gets put across with immediate dramatic force.
They don't. The pace is deadening and the scenes never pick up any dramatic energy whatsoever. The actors do their best, but every separate episode slowly rolls across the screen like a stately pageant.
The only creative participant in the film who shows any enthusiasm is composer Franz Waxman, who tries to compliment the film with a rich, fully engaged symphonic score. But Waxman's music is rationed out in small doses.........and the film's stuffed with boring, dead-on-arrival staging that cried out for musical accompaniment. Getting none, the scenes drop dead in front of you.
I honestly don't remember what "The Green Sheet" review thought of the film. For me, sadly, a weary disappointment. Mostly for Hemingway completists and any fans of the actors involved.
2 stars (**)
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