''Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man'' is a 1962 American

adventure film The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...

directed by

Martin Ritt Martin Ritt (March 2, 1914 – December 8, 1990) was an American director, producer, and actor, active in film, theatre and television. He was known mainly as an auteur of socially-conscious dramas and literary adaptations, described by Stanley K ...

based on

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

's semi-autobiographical character Nick Adams, and featuring

Richard Beymer George Richard Beymer Jr. (born February 20, 1938) is an American actor, filmmaker and artist who played the roles of Tony in the 1961 film adaptation of ''West Side Story'', Peter van Daan in '' The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959), and Ben Horn ...

as Adams. A.E. Hotchner wrote the screenplay, originally calling the film ''Ernest Hemingway's "Young Man"''. The cast includes Diane Baker,

Jessica Tandy Jessie Alice Tandy (7 June 1909 – 11 September 1994) was a British actress. An icon in the film industry, she appeared in over 100 stage productions and had more than 60 roles in film and TV, receiving an Academy Award, four Tony Awards, a BAF ...

, Ricardo Montalbán,

Eli Wallach Eli Herschel Wallach ( ; December 7, 1915 – June 24, 2014) was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a British Aca ...

, Arthur Kennedy and

Paul Newman Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and activist. He was the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Paul Newman, numerous awards ...

. It was released in July 1962.

Plot

Nick Adams is a young, restless man in rural Michigan who wants a good life and to see the world. He leaves his domineering mother and noble but weak physician father on a cross country trip. In his ramblings he encounters a punch-drunk boxer, a sympathetic telegrapher, and a burlesque show promoter. Nick applies to be a reporter for a newspaper in New York City, but is told he lacks experience. While working at a catered banquet, he hears a speech by a beautiful woman soliciting volunteer ambulance drivers for the Italian Army in World War I, and impulsively signs up. On arrival, he is assigned a bilingual companion to help him, who cannot believe that Nick would volunteer for such a posting. They experience battlefield horrors, Nick is injured, and falls in love with his nurse, who then falls ill herself and dies at the moment they are taking their bedside wedding vows. Finally returning home to his family, he is stunned to hear that his father had died after worrying about Nick.

Cast

Licensing

Producer Jerry Wald negotiated with Hemingway to license his short stories: " Indian Camp", " The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife", " The End of Something", " The Three-Day Blow", " The Battler", " A Very Short Story", " In Another Country", " Now I Lay Me", " A Way You'll Never Be" and " A Pursuit Race". Hemingway had to approve the screenplay during all stages of development.

Production

Jerry Wald and A. E. Hotchner approached Hemingway seeking the rights to either ''

Across the River and Into the Trees ''Across the River and into the Trees'' is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1950, after first being serialized in ''Cosmopolitan (magazine), Cosmopolitan'' magazine earlier that year. The titl ...

'' or the Nick Adams stories. Hemingway did not want to sell rights to his novel and was only keen on selling one Nick Adams story. Hotchner pitched to buy the rights for 10 of the 19 stories. Hemingway agreed provided certain conditions were met, including ensuring that "Nick was a good boy." Jerry Wald said he and director

agreed that

was "the young actor I think stands the best chance of being the next

Gary Cooper Gary Cooper (born Frank James Cooper; May 7, 1901May 13, 1961) was an American actor known for his strong, silent screen persona and understated acting style. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice and had a further three nominations, ...

." Filming started 25 September 1961 in Mellen, Wisconsin and wound up in 22 January in

Verona, Italy Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city municipality in the region and in northeastern Italy. The metropoli ...

. Interiors were supposed to be shot at

Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia The (; CSC), also referred to as the (), is an Italian national film school headquartered in Rome, with satellite educational hubs in five other Italian regions. It was established in 1935 and aims to promote the art and technique of cinemat ...

in Rome, but that facility was taken up by the production of ''

Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...

'' (1963), forcing ''Hemingway's'' to finish its studio work back in the United States. Jerry Wald died just before the film was released.

References

External links

* * * {{Martin Ritt 1962 films 1962 drama films 20th Century Fox films American coming-of-age films American drama films 1960s English-language films Films scored by Franz Waxman Films based on works by Ernest Hemingway Films directed by Martin Ritt Films set in the 1910s CinemaScope films 1960s American films