The Snows of Kilimanjaro

I did not have high expectations for this film because the cover of the box looked quite rubbish. I don’t really know what it was but it just didn’t have a big draw to it. The only reason I bought the film was because Gregory peck was in it, I had just watched To Kill a Mocking Bird and thought he was brilliant.

So this film was about a man who was stuck up a mountain as he has gang green and is slowly dieing. He reminisces over his past loves as he waits to find out if the doctor will come in time. The film starts off slow but does eventually pick up about half way through. I was getting very bored; I didn’t really care about Peck because he was not a nice character. He was snobby and didn’t care about anyone apart from himself. So I couldn’t feel sorry for him when his relationships went down the drain. This went on for about an hour, we just saw him build a relationship and then see it fail. I felt cheated that I had not seen a powerfully acted scene with Peck.

However the flashbacks did start to link to the present day as he got more sick. This made me care more as he was on the brink of death. There was a line that a voice over said at the beginning of the film which made sense about 20 minutes till the end of the film. This was probably the only exiting bit of the whole film.

This film was made in 1952 and it showed. When he got his first pay check he went on a holiday to Africa to hunt Rhinos with his girlfriend. I very much doubt you could do that now with out landing up in jail nowadays. Also the way he treated black people was so racist. He would yell their name if he wanted a drink and just treated them with no respect at all.

Overall I thought this film was all right. There were some good points in it and the occasional laugh. It was also interesting to know what sort of films where being made at the time. But it did not have any wow factor about it so I would not recommend you watch this film.