Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Blistering performances.

Ernest Hemingway's novel of 'the lost generation' swaning around Europe in the Twenties became this big, prestige production from Darryl F Zanuck and directed by Henry King who was something of a dab hand at turning out big, prestige productions like this. If it's a tad on the turgid side and if the cast were a trifle too old for their roles it's still immensely entertaining and King's direction is often outstanding. It also has old-fashioned star quality of the kind we associate with a much earlier age. Tyrone Power may be miscast as Jake Barnes, Hemingway's 'existential' hero and Mel Ferrer was his usual wooden self but Ava Gardner is surprisingly good as Brett and both Eddie Albert and especially Errol Flynn, (it's probably his best performance), are excellent while Juliette Greco steals her every scene.Despite all the money that was poured into the picture it wasn't really a success; maybe had it been made 20 years earlier things might have been different but by 1957 a new realism had taken over and epic dramas like this one were seen as dinosaurs. Today it feels like a throwback to a time when Hollywood was king and big, bold movies like this were ten a penny. It's certainly no masterpiece but it's no dog either.

Hemingway's great novel "The Sun Also Rises" has three layers to it. On the surface it is about the lives, adventures and falling out of a group of American and British expatriates in France and Spain after World War 1. At a second level there is a subtext running throughout the book about the search for meaning and authenticity in the aftermath of that horrendous war. And thirdly on a literary level there is the revolutionary style of Hemingway's spare prose where so often less is so much more. This film adaptation unfortunately only addresses the surface level – it is arguable whether any film adaptation could embrace all three. How does it rate on its limited scope? Only Errol Flynn as "Mike Campbell" captures the essence of the book character : bankrupt, dissolute, pathetic but still somehow endearing. His model in real life was dead within a decade. Tyrone Power as the protagonist "Jake Barnes" is stolid but unmemorable. Ava Gardner should be ideal as the reckless liberated 20's female "Brett Ashley" but the film fails to provide sufficient back story to explain her promiscuous dissolution and Gardner does not really convince in the role. Eddie Albert fails to project sufficiently the good-natured ebullience and intelligence of Jake's friend "Bill Gorton". Finally Mel Ferrer is merely adequate as "Robert Cohn" who triggers much of the falling out of the group in Spain. Overall this is a disappointing attempt to film what is probably an unfilmable novel. See it to watch Errol Flynn in one of his finest roles.

Papa once said that the best way to deal with Hollywood was to meet the producer at the California state line. You throw him the rights to the book and he throws you the check. Then you drive away fast. This large-scale, colorful, and expensive romance certainly has its admirable elements but it's an example of what happens to a popular novel after you throw the rights over to the studio."The Sun Also Rises" was Hemingway's first real novel and in many ways his best. A group of diverse ex pats, mostly American are living in Paris a few years after the end of World War I. (Kids, that's the one that came before World War II.) The narration says they were called "the lost generation" but the fact is that they didn't know it at the time. I believe it was Gertrude Stein that gave them that label in an offhand way and it was picked up much later by the press. Most of them seem to know one another. The must have a lot of money because they leave town whenever they feel like it. "I'm tired of Paris, Jake; let's go to South America," says one.And so they all get away -- to Spain to watch the bulls at Pamplona. I never saw much point in bullfights. You first enrage the animal, then tease him, then torture him with banderillas, then tease him some more, then finally kill him brutally with a sword. Ridiculous. Reminds me of my marriage. Of course the bull is no genius either. If he were smart enough to have the concept of "agency" he'd know that he shouldn't charge the red flag but the thing that is making the red flag wave around, namely the matador.Power is the central figure, as Jake Barnes, rendered impotent by a war wound and therefore unfit for physical love. When Tyrone Power is waked up at four in the morning by a drunken ex girl friend (Gardner) and climbs out of bed (in his pajamas) his hair is still combed and carefully gelled. Not a hair out of place. Don't want him to look scruffy because he's the star. As Barnes, Power is polite but gruff and treats people with indifference. He goes from restaurant to night club to night club but doesn't enjoy himself. He's too old for the part. This is, after all, the Gatsby era we're talking about and that generation was about thirty.Gardner is very good looking, as usual. It's believed that the character was modeled on Lady Duff Cooper, a beautiful socialite of the era. She'd survived the sinking of the Titanic. One member of the mob -- mentioned in the novel's first sentence, is Robert Cohn, a boxing champion at Princeton and a very rich writer manqué. His wardrobe is a perfect fit -- for 1957: a loosely fitting, single-breasted, powder blue suit with a narrow necktie. The women's wardrobe gets more of a nod to historical accuracy but they still come out looking like Hallowe'en costumes somehow. An occasional artist (bearded and bereted) is shown sketching someone, so we know we're supposed to be on la rive gauche, not in Mexico City. Errol Flynn does amazingly well in the role of the proud but pathetic bankrupt who keeps saying aloud what other people are only thinking. The musical score follows suit. When Gardner enters a church to pray for her battered bullfighter, we're treated to a full minute of a heavenly choir, in case we didn't get the point that she was praying in church. Friedhofer did come up a lush and catchy romantic theme though, borrowed for a pop song, "When the World Was Young."I don't know that Hemingway ever saw this movie or, if he did, he didn't laugh. So much of good writing is on the page. Hemingway, who wrote sensitive and action-filled stories, just didn't translate well on the screen -- not that Hollywood made much of an effort. His literary reputation went into eclipse after he died in 1960. I don't know why, though he wrote some clunkers. During the same period, Hemingway's friend and enemy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, by then long dead, underwent some sort of reappraisal and "The Great Gatsby" was reread. Poor Fitzgerald died at forty. It's often said that his books were out of print at the time, but in fact they were all still available but only sold seventeen copies in the year of his death. That's neither here nor there but this film wouldn't have been made in 1956 if the novel had been written by Fitzgerald instead of Hemingway.All in all, it's not a terrible translation of the novel, and it's kept what is maybe the best line. Powers delivers it sarcastically, and the literary Barnes gives it a wistful tone: Jake Barnes' "Isn't it pretty to think so." ("Pretty.")

The actors seem right for these roles, as if they were born to play them. As a result, each character vividly comes to life on screen. Ava Gardner is at her sexiest; Tyrone Power displays his perennial boyish charm; Mel Ferrer infuses his part with the perfect amount of creepiness; Eddie Albert provides some nice comic relief; and Errol Flynn steals the show as an incorrigible drunk (a real stretch for him?). But more important than these characterizations is how the film captures the spirit of Hemingway's writing. It depicts the wanderlust, the excitement and the philosophy of an interesting group of expatriates and their interwoven destinies. When they all go off in separate directions near the end of the picture, the viewer can't help but feel melancholy that their time together is over.