Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)

Boring

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I can understand how this movie can compile a variety of feelings, pro and con. I had to really think about how to rate this film and where to go in my review of it. Sometimes a film does not require a linear story to make its point, nor does it require a definitive plot. In the case of this lavishly filmed study of Hemingway's semi-autobiographical stories, I drew my inspiration for my feelings towards it from my love for stories that simply give us slices of life. Richard Beymer, an actor who I felt has been mostly maligned in reviews I've read, gives what I consider a truly admirable performance as Nick Adams, a handsome young man desperate to find himself after rather rough beginning. That is because of the contrast of his parents-an extremely religious, but basically unloving mother (Jessica Tandy) and a weak-willed, hen-pecked father (Arthur Kennedy) who has given him the only love he's ever known. Tandy's performance is brilliant because she shows the hypocrisy of a woman so into God that she's forgotten about humanity, and Kennedy is outstanding because he shows a man so filled with love that God's grace shines over him, not his unknowingly empty-hearted wife. The son cherishes his father but silently wishes he would open his eyes to the emptiness of love in their home. This causes him to decide to go out into the world and seek life elsewhere.Out in the world, Beymer encounters an interesting group of eccentrics, finds himself closer to God when he becomes an Ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, and finally returns home to confront the truth about his family. The cast is filled with many famous names in cameos. I did not recognize Paul Newman at all (!) as the mentally challenged prizefighter. He gives a truthful performance, and is wisely supported by Juano Hernandez. Two former leading men of 20th Century Fox's history (James Dunn and Dan Dailey) come on to give little bits of Americana; Dunn as a wise telegraph operator, and Dailey as an alcoholic vaudevillian. In Italy, there are some brilliant performances by Eli Wallach and Ricardo Montalban who provide some wonderful human moments of kindness in a horrible situation. Susan Strasberg, as Beymer's Italian love interest, is excellent.The conclusion is a tragic revelation that explodes into a major confrontation between Beymer and Tandy, and brings the story full circle. What has transpired in this circle is that Beymer left his small Michigan town a young man and came back fully grown up determined to seek his own ideal of what his destiny is. This is a lushly filmed epic with a beautiful music score and a haunting message that will touch those who open their hearts to find it. Those who only know Beymer from his rather wooden performance in "West Side Story" will find him more engaging here, playing a role that Montgomery Clift might have been played a decade before.

1st watched 2/6/2010 - 7 out of 10 (Dir-Martin Ritt): Well executed drama about the life of a young man and how he became an adult thru his various experiences. The movie is based on some of Earnest Hemingway's stories and is somewhat autobiographical(which it seems like most of his stuff is). Anyway, this one is about a 19-year old boy named Nick Adams, played by Richard Beymer of West Side Story fame, who runs away from home in an attempt to get to New York and become a newspaper writer. He has no idea what he's getting into but he knows his experiences will help him somehow be what he wants to be. He eventually makes it there(after a couple of adventures with various characters), but is turned down by the newspaper companies saying he needs more experience of the work and life kind. He then ends up volunteering for the Italian army as an ambulance driver(mostly for the life experience but also because a pretty girl initiates the request) and gets more than he ever expected. People die near him, he falls in love and loses her to death, he gets wounded and all of the sudden you have a very experienced man by the time it's all over. The acting is first-rate throughout the whole movie and the direction is perfect for the story -- letting us follow it without too much added un-necessary touches. It's done very simply without much of a soundtrack either making it like we're watching life unfold before our eyes. The story overall is not that uplifting but it's real -- which is usually pretty hand to find in American productions. An overall very well made movie that keeps you interested throughout with many well laid-out characters on this Hemingway story turned to film.

The motion picture, based on Hemingway's autobiographical "Nick Adams" stories, depicts the picaresque experiences of an aspiring writer (Richard Beymer) who leaves his home in 1917 to learn about life… Near the beginning, the young man, thrown off a freight train, encounters the punch drunk fighter and his black manager and friend, Bugs (Juano Hernandez). The Battler, in his fifties, was once a top fighter, but he declined into second-rate matches, prison and panhandling (Rocky Graziano in reverse!).As he and Nick sit in the woods by a fire, the pitiful, half-alive Battler speaks roughly, sometimes mumbling incoherently, about his life… He searches pathetically for his thoughts and memories, makes useless swinging gestures in the air, and reflexively punches his fist into his palm—a man barely in control of his mind or muscles… This is the kind of self-effacing, grotesque-makeup part critics often like, and many thought he brought compassion as well, as physical reality to it… Others believed that he overplayed it almost to the point of caricature; Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said, "It is Paul Newman's very good fortune that he isn't recognizable… for he is simply terrible."

This film attempts to compile all or most of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories into one complete whole. The effect is a coming of age story that ends on a bitter/semi-sweet note. Along the way you see a series of stories populated by well known actors and actresses.There is a sequence that reminds one of Farewell to Arms (wounded ambulance driver falls in love with nurse, who eventually dies in his arms).There is the overbearing, controlling, religious mother and the anguished father (who eventually takes his own life).There is the hard boiled newspaper editor, who gives sound hard boiled advice.I liked the movie, but I am unsure whether I would recommend it to someone else.