Customer Reviews

The Snows of Kilimanjaro [VHS]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

****This review applies ONLY to the Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment DVD release. NOT for any other release. For the first time in home video history, Twentieth Century-Fox Home Entertainment has released "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in a NON-public domain edition. Since the advent of the VCR, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" has been resigned to crappy, public domain videos from just about every cheapy distributor around. FINALLY Twentieth Century-Fox, the original studio behind this classic, has taken it from the public domain and given it a proper home video release on DVD. If you love this fan, you can use all previous DVDs of this film for coasters for your drink as you enjoy this marvel. Completely remastered and restored, "Snows" is nothing less than a technical wonder. For years I thought the only way to watch this film was on washed out, dark and scratchy prints. No more! Twentieth Century-Fox gives us a glowing transfer, superb soundtrack and loads of extras. Included as part of the "Ernest Hemmingway Film Collection", this DVD is also sold separately, which is basis for this review. Do not hesitiate to buy this version, which currently retails for under 20 bucks. It is worth every penny! Good-bye poor quality PD DVDs, hello "Snows of Kilimanjaro" the way it was meant to be seen!

Bought the DVD in assembling a Gregory Peck collection. Version was the one with Ava Gardner on the cover of the pack. The film was complete, but there was annoying technical noise, and quite a bit of fluttering in the picture. I may at some point buy another version of this DVD, but I do not recommend the technical quality of this particular production.

I only paid a dollar for this DVD and this is one of the best copies I have found of this film. In THE SNOWS OF KILMANJARO writer Gregory Peck reflects on the loves in his life as he lays waiting to die at the base of Kilimanjaro in this Hemingway story. The story juxtaposes his past live with his true Ava Gardner and the present with his wife Susan Hayward. THE SNOWS OF KILMANJARO has a very good Bernard Herrmann score. John DeCuir and Lyle R. Wheeler's Art Direction is exquisite and adds to the strange mystique of this film. Henry King's direction is rather ethereal.

Amazon is still combining movie reviews.

There are about half of dozen DVD versions of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro".

Amazon combines all of these reviews, so whether you get a DVD with excellent quality or terrible quality all those reviews are applied to all of the versions of the DVD available for sale.

I purchased the most expensive one "The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Remastered Edition)" and the quality is terrible. It looks like the movie was shot through a dirty window.

The DVD case has black trim and shows Ava Gardner and Gregoty Peck sitting at a dinner table. Avoid this version!

I will now try purchasing other versions of this movie from Amazon I'm hoping to find the one and only good one. I read all of the other reviews and was not able to reliably determine which one is the official studio release.

Amazon's policy of combining movie reviews is financially wasteful and damaging to the environment.

UPDATE: Buy the one with the red/brown border, (mountain peaks are visible above Ava Gardner and Gregoty Peck on the case cover). This DVD looks great!!

This film can only be characterized as a huge disappointment. A great cast, a screenplay based on the works (and life) of a great author, a dangerous, romantic setting, and this film simply doesn't go anywhere at the end. This film opens with the main character Harry Street (played by Gregory Peck) lying in bed at a safari camp in Africa, wounded, perhaps mortally, and being attended by his lover, Helen (played by Susan Hayward). We are then taken back to Peck's earlier life as a young, talented writer (much like Hemingway himself) through a series of flashbacks. We see the ups and downs of his life, his loves, and his mistakes. We are occasionally taken back to Africa where Street reflects on his life, the women that he loved, and the relationship with his current love. This is a tale of adventure, of life, of love, and of reflection, it could have been an all time great film, but unfortunately falls well short. There is a lot to like in this film. The acting is, for the most part, top notch. Great performances by Susan Wayward and Ava Gardner in my view. The complex relationship between Peck and Gardner is particularly well done. You'll really feel the emotions of their love affair, as well as their ultimate lack of any real connection. I also thought that the overall portrayal of Street's life and his successes and failures, both professional and romantic, was well done. There are some things I really dislike about this film though. The cinematography in Africa is horrid. One thing that the audience can usually count on in films set in Africa (particularly with a safari-related theme - compare with other Africa films shot in the same era such as Mogambo or King Solomon's Mines) is spectacular cinemtography of the wildlife, the landscape, etc. These scenes are so dark and poorly shot that you'll be left wondering why you bothered. Second, the writer/producer/director went over the top with the melodrama at times, and it really weakens the overall effect of the film. I found the ambulance scene in Spain in which Harry Street comes across his long lost love in the middle of a battle to be almost laughably overblown. Finally, the ending is unimaginative and anti-climactic. Did Street truly find the women he loves because she spent one night taking care of him on what may be his deathbead? A pretty good film that is best remembered for what it might have been.

Ernest Hemingway hated this adaptation of his work, and disparagingly referred to it as "The Snows of Zanuck." I think he was overestimating his own writing, and I think the film is no worse than the work upon which it was based. Methinks he doth protest too much. Hemingway was heard to grumble: "I sold Zanuck one short story, not my whole body of works." The Casey Robinson screenplay is witty and honest, with the right blend of cynicism and naivetee. Gregory Peck is a gruff, grumbly, handsome-as-a-devil Hemingway "hero," and Ava Gardner makes a memorable, heartbreakingly beautiful Cynthia. Susan Hayward makes the best of the film's most thankless role (she looks great in a pith helmut, too). The layers of flashbacks perfectly convey the sense of a man reevaluating his past as he faces imminent death. Much has been made of the ending, and the way it deviates from the original story. I don't see the sunny Hollywood ending purists have denounced, since we really don't know the status of the dying writer as the helicopter arrives. The soundtrack is a bit loopy and out-of-synch in places, and the special effects (especially the river crossing) look pretty bad by today's standards, but the acting adds a depth and humanity which is missing from Hemingway's original work. A fun piece of escapist safaridrama along the lines of the superior "King Solomon's Mines" or "Mogambo."

The quality of this DVD is terrible. The sound track is off and does not match up with the visual speaking of the actors. The DVD kept jumping back to the beginning of the movie every few minutes. It was impossible to watch this product.

A fan of Gregory Peck, will enjoy this movie. Unfortunately the quality of my DVD,made watching this movie to fuzzy to enjoy. Thereby I recommend asking about clarity before purchasing.

Gregory Peck plays Harry Street, a famous American writer, who lies dangerously ill in a hunting camp at the foot of the highest peak in Africa, Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro... His lovely companion Susan Hayward, who had arranged this hunting trip in the hopes of winning his love, takes care of him faithfully and prays for his recover... Peck, surrounded by vultures in the trees, is semi delirious and fears that he's going to die from an infected wound...

His feverish mind goes back to his youth... He recalls his uncle Bill (Leo G. Carrell), who guided his life in those early years, Connie (Helene Stanley), the first girl he was interested in, and his travels around the world in search for something he never seemed to discover...

We see him entering a charming bistro in Montparnasse, Paris, where he first meets the beautiful (Cynthia) Ava Gardner... Inspired by her love, he writes his first novel, making her the central character without conscious planning...

'Snows of Kilimanjaro' is Hayward's third movie with director Henry King, and her second with Peck after "David and Bathsheba." Hayward and Peck's scenes at the foot of Kilimanjaro are constantly interrupted by flashbacks and this, plus the fact that most of their sequences in France were left on the cutting room floor, made Hayward's part sort of 'evaporate' from everybody's mind... However, she does have strong dramatic scenes at the end of the movie... Ava Gardner appeared as the ideal Hemingway heroine...

The film celebrated the mastery of Benny Carter--one of the most important and influential musician in the history of jazz, and got two Oscar nominations for Art Direction/Set Decoration and Cinematography...

AT LAST THE 20TH CENTURY FOX VERSION TO REPLACE ALL THOSE PUBLIC DOMAIN, INCOMPLETE SLOPPY VERSIONS..........GREGORY PECK. SUSAN HAYWARD, AVA GARDNER......DARRYL F. ZANUCK'S 20TH CENTURY FOX.....ONE OF THE BEST DVDS..........HIGHLY RECOMMENED........IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT I WOULD SAY YOU ARE IN FOR QUITE A CINEMATIC TREAT..........GARY JASINKONIS......EAST NORTHPORT, NEW YORK.........SUSAN HAYWARD FOREVER...........