More Errol Flynn completism, and for Ava Gardner too. This adapts Hemingway's take (1926) on the Americans who stayed behind in Europe, specifically Paris, after World War I, and while I did somewhat enjoy the later A Farewell to Arms (1929) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) I won't be seeking out the source material for this one.
There are many problems with this movie. The largest by far is that Flynn steals every scene he's in; his Scottish-gentry dipso is magnetic and graceful where leading man Tyrone Powell is leaden, declamatory, wooden. Gardner is clearly rusted on to the wrong man but that's her prerogative as the only American girl-woman in Paris and Pamplona. (She's a lot younger here than, for instance, The Night of the Iguana (1964), where she shows more determination to get what she wants.) Too many ancillary characters don't contribute to what we're shown though are perhaps necessary to illustrate the multitudes Papa Hemingway thought he contained. But his notions of manliness are variations on a very narrow theme.
The cinematography is often quite good but was just as often ruined by the editing. The street fete/carnival scenes are chopped up so poorly; Coppola did far better in The Godfather Part II (1974).
Bosley Crowther gave it the thumbs up. "[Gardner] simply doesn't, or can't, convey the lady's innate, poignant air of breeding, for all [her] promiscuity. Sorry, Miss Gardner." Details at Wikipedia. Hemingway himself: "I guess the best thing about the film was Errol Flynn." Too many bistros.
