BallWubba
Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Fleur
Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.
bkoganbing
Hemingway's Adventure's Of A Young Man was still in the making when word of Papa Hemngway's suicide broke on the world. We'll never know what he would have thought of this film, he was not fond of most of the films done from his work. In fact since it's initial release, this film has not been exhibited too often for some reason.The film is based on Hemingway protagonist Nick Adams and his coming of age as an ambulance driver in World War I. Ernest Hemingway's first experience with love and death came during those years when he was serving on the Italian front in their army as an ambulance driver. Watching this film you'll see the origins of the stories in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell To Arms.Hemingway's sparse style has always really been difficult to capture on film and the same is true here. Richard Beymer is the callow Nick Adams who is from a small town in rural Michigan which even today is as rural as you can get in the USA. Beymer does his best, but the part seems to have been tailor made for the late James Dean had he only lived. Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man would have been a well remembered classic with Dean in the title role.The rest of the cast has some well placed cameos along Beymer's journey of life. Juano Hernandez and Paul Newman play a trainer and a long past his prime boxer who Beymer meets while bumming it to New York. This rarest of Newman films affords his fans a chance to see him in something totally different than anything he ever did before or since. Newman had done The Battler for a television film based on that particular Nick Adams story, but this is still a revelation.In war Beymer's two closest companions are Ricardo Montalban his commanding officer and Eli Wallach as his interpreter/orderly. They will also be memorable as will Susan Strassberg in whom the origin of Catherine Barkley from A Farewell To Arms is found.As they do with just about all film adaptations Hemingway purists will find fault with this film, but Hemingway's Adventures Of A Young Man will give one a good introduction to what was the origin of Papa.
Edgar Soberon Torchia
"Ernest Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man" is one of the many motion pictures I saw during my adolescence in one of the cinemas in the neighborhood where I grew up, the colonial part of the city of Panamá. Somehow I completely forgot what it was about. Last night I sat to check the opening credits for nostalgia reasons. The film began and although I am not a Franz Waxman specialist, I instantly said to myself "Waxman...", and it was him!, his music, so instead I ended watching the complete film again. I was surprised to find out it is an entertaining road movie, and have no explanation why I could not remember a single scene from it. Maybe I was too young to care about the ideas being voiced, even if they were neither too profound nor developed enough. Maybe Richard Beymer (as Nick Adams), Susan Strasberg and Diane Baker (as his love interests) were neither strong nor charismatic young performers to watch a whole film with them as leads... This of course is not true considering, for examples, their contributions to "West Side Story", "Taste of Fear" and "Strait-Jacket", respectively, but I realized that it was mostly the fine performances by the rest of the cast what smoothly carry the narration along. In the first act, Arthur Kennedy as Nick's father is very good; then Paul Newman, Juano Hernández, James Dunn, Dan Dailey and Fred Clark give strong support during Nick's trip from Michigan to New York; Ricardo Montalbán and Eli Wallach follow during the third section, and Jessica Tandy does her fine act as a bitter mother (repeated a year later in "The Birds") in the resolution. Thanks to good art direction evoking the first years of the 20th century and beautiful location shooting in Italy and Wisconsin, one can overlook the carelessness of Academy Award- winning cinematographer Lee Garmes here and there, with shadows of the camera and light equipments all over the place in different scenes. But most of all it is a film dominated by good acting. Martin Ritt was an excellent director of actors and it is quite evident in this film, which also covers some of the social and political issues he would later treat at length in his filmography, mostly in "Hud", "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "The Front", "Norma Rae", "Sounder", "Conrack", and "Stanley and Iris".
victorsargeant
Susan Strausberg at her best. The story is taken directly from Ernest Hemmingways's life. Nick Adams plays Ernest.Music by Franz Waxman is excellent. Jessica Tandy great performance. Arthur Kennedy is great as well. Paul Newman, don't know why he did this part, but I admire his risking, to allow us to see him, stupid and ugly.I learned a lot from this film, as I was growing up in the Midwest and understood the coming of age agony. "Splender in the Grass" goes well with this type of film, as they are the wounded human soul, and its power to withstand all pain, and be transformed into a hero. The price of wisdom is your innocence, as always.I have seen this film 30 times and still enjoy its charming bitter sweet story. BRAVO Ernest.
helpless_dancer
Don't know how the hot headed Hemmingway felt about this makeover of his book but I sure liked it. The likable Beymer was just right as the backwoods 19 year old eager to leave the lakeside cabin and taste the world. Finally he makes his plunge and, after almost calling it quits, makes it to the big apple while meeting several interesting characters along the way. His visions of the 'new world' didn't pan out as he had dreamed and he winds up involved in a world war. This was the pivotal event which caused the boy to become a man giving him the underpinning to take on a life formerly denied because of inexperience. As always, it was fun seeing some of the old, familiar faces again. 5 stars.
