(Review originally written at 16 October 2007)
For a movie that advertises itself as an adventure movie this movie surely has few thrills and action in it. The movie instead is a typical multiple way love-story, that still works out good and interesting thanks to its settings.
The movie its romantic story is pretty well written and works out just fine because of the unusual settings and top-class actors in this movie. The script avoids a couple of clichés, though it's still an obvious typical romantic '40's/'50's movie love-story.
But yeah, the movie is definitely a lackluster. Some action really wouldn't had harmed this movie. It would at least had provided the movie with some more pace to overcome the more slower and dull moments within the movie.
The movie has an overall nice atmosphere and it was mostly shot on location throughout Africa, though some pickup shots are obvious studio work. It also helps that the movie uses lots of locals for roles in the movie and nature shots of animals, even though they were clearly separately shot from the rest of the movie.
There are some fine actors in this movie but I didn't always liked the characters. This especially goes for the Grace Kelly character. She seems to be irritated with everyone and everything. Also with her own husband, who seems to have done nothing wrong in his life to her. It makes her character one that is hard to really sympathize for and one that perhaps even annoys at points. Nevertheless, Grace Kelly still received an Oscar nominations for her performance. The same goes for Ava Gardner by the way. I liked her role and character on the other hand by the way.
Clark Gable didn't really seemed right and believable in his role as the tough ladies-man. He really didn't aged well and his glory days were long behind him, with of course the '30's and his "Gone With the Wind" role as his ultimate career highlights. He looked too old and fragile for the kind of role as in this movie. Clark Gable unfortunately only lived to the age of 59 before dying of a heart attack, which really didn't surprised me that much if you see him in his later movies, such as this one. So perhaps he was a bit miscast in this movie, although it's understandable. His name of course really sells when its attached to a movie and he played some good similar type of roles in the past.
Worth watching, as long as you don't expect a swashbuckling adventure movie with Clark Gable swinging from tree to tree.
7/10
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