Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Tad Pole . . . seems to be the De Facto subtitle of HEMINGWAY ON FILM (one of the most misleading documentary short namings ever), a "bonus" feature for the 2007 DVD release of THE SUN ALSO RISES (which apparently embarrassed everyone involved so much that they refuse to formally acknowledge the existence of this 23-minute piece at this site). First, out of many dozens of movies based upon Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway's novels and short stories, it focuses exclusively on four rather random flicks--all fiascoes, as far as we can learn here. Worse yet, it does not clearly identify two of them (UNDER MY SKIN and ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN) until the end credits roll. About 85% of the attention is devoted to the worst mess of the bunch, THE SUN ALSO RISES. The excuses the two academic talking heads featured here make for Darryl F. Zanuck's misbegotten monstrosity would sound pathetically lame even to someone who has NOT heard SUN screenwriter (and intimate Hemingway pal) Peter Viertel spell it out. The megalomaniac Zanuck used a SUN cast member as his personal pimp, and then invented a major role for the pathetic prostitute who did him on the casting couch. Racist Zanuck ruined the last half of SUN by claiming that actual bullfighter noses were "too big," and placing a STRAY NEW YORK CITY BUSBOY with no acting experience or ability in a crucial role. To muck things up as much as possible, Zanuck also substituted a Haitian-like part of Mexico for the Sweden-like Basque region of Spain. "Papa" H. blew his brains out after this SUN set (wiki it yourself).

drjalee52 I am so moved by both this film and book that it makes me rethink the meaning of life. Tyrone Powell plays a rather reserved Jake Barnes. He does indeed Lady Brent to the point in which he has accepted her wayward life-style. Errol Flynn and Eddie Albert also add flavor and humor to a rather sad way of life.The film leaves out key scenes in the book.The poor love sick Robert addresses the issue of people who simply trying to hang-on regardless of the pain and suffering as does all the cast for one reason or another in life. Drinks does not lead to joy.Jake and Lady Ashley have a love that will go beyond the sexual desires of a wanton soul. Only Hemingway can take a masculine approach to Bullfighting and Love. We must always fight a good fight and always be ready to fight. Jake stated that he would indeed return next season for the fighting of the bulls.

howardeisman The genius of Hemingway's novel is that the narrator naively and gradually reveals what a bunch of self centered, talentless, bigoted bunch of losers his central characters were. Their drinking was not so much angst as superannuated college kids on a binge. Now, some eighty years later, Robert Cohn comes across as the best of them. He cared, he loved, and he was the only successful one of them.How do you make a movie about such unattractive characters?. Would you ask top stars to play contemptible people? The characterizations of the leads were all compromises; Lady Brett becomes a misty romantic, not a rather dull, dumb lost woman (as in the book). Given only empty stereotypes to portray, the actor's performances ring hollow and purposeless. The characters played by Errol Flynn and Eddie Albert were not written with any characterizations at all, thus allowing the actors to do colorful shticks.Nevertheless, the atmosphere was good. The story moves. Minor characters are well done. The movie is Hemingway, but Hemingway lite. Mel Ferrer was good; he should have had a bigger role. His character, Robert Cohn was a contrast to all the rest of the characters. This works in the book, but hardly existed in the film

pninson Filming Hemingway's introspective, brooding novel "The Sun Also Rises" was a major challenge. Much of the power of Hemingway's story stems from what is not said, what is left out, what is suggested or only hinted at.In Virginia Woolf's novel "To The Lighthouse", the author goes inside everyone's mind and tells you exactly what all the characters are thinking. "The Sun Also Rises" is the opposite: you read what the characters say to each other and do in public, but even Jake Barnes, the narrator and central character, leaves most of his feelings unspoken. He pushes them aside and tries to soldier on in spite of them.This is obviously not something that can work on screen. However, this A-list adaptation succeeds, up to a point, in bringing the novel to life without making too much explicit. Although some of the performers are miscast and are much older than the characters in the book, there are solid performances all around.Those who haven't read the book may find this film slow and rambling. This is not a tightly plotted story; it's more of a character study, as well as a look at a time and place where people were disillusioned and living on the edge of hope. The film does compensate for the loose narrative with spectacular sequences of bullfighting and the running of the bulls at Pamplona.I originally saw this film in 1971 on a small black and white TV with commercial breaks; I may have even missed the first few minutes. It's a real treat to have the color widescreen Cinemascope presentation available on DVD. Despite its weaknesses, I do like this picture and it really needs a good widescreen transfer to fully appreciate it.