Hemingway's discursive unfinished novel wasn't yet pulled together when the author died; but the moviemakers, undaunted, plow through two barely connected storylines, one a family drama and the other a To Have and Have Not smuggling escapade, as though they imagine they are dealing with great, fundamental wisdoms ("I know now," they have the hero confide at the end, "there is no one thing that is true. It is all true"). Despite their obvious worshipfulness of him, the moviemakers have tenderized the author, and his worrisome masculinity, with some demonstrative emotionalism, some childish comedy relief, and a final maudlin hallucination in which the penitent loner hero sees himself and his family united in love and in glowing white clothing. George C. Scott is generally a better actor the closer he plays to paralysis, and the stereotyped Hemingway hero seems to inspire him in that direction. But the fictional character, the artist Thomas Hudson, tends to disappear into the Hemingway mystique and the white-whiskers Papa Hemingway makeup job. With David Hemmings, Claire Bloom, Susan Tyrrell; directed by Franklin Schaffner. (1977) — Duncan Shepherd
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