The Sun Also Rises (1957 film)

Cast

Hemingway Reaction

Ernest Hemingway saw the film but walked out after 25 minutes stating:

I saw as much of Darryl Zanuck's splashy Cook's tour of Europe's lost generation bistros, bullfights, and more bistros... It's pretty disappointing and that's being gracious. Most of my story was set in Pamplona so they shot the film in Mexico. You're meant to be in Spain and all you see walking around are nothing but Mexicans... It looked pretty silly. The bulls were mighty small for a start, and it looked like they had big horns on them for the day. I guess the best thing about the film was Errol Flynn.

"That was a kind of lousy thing to say about my picture before the reviews came out," said Zanuck:

I think a writer is entitled to criticize if there is a complete distortion. But if he sees that there has been a serious attempt to put his story on the screen, even if it failed in some instances, he doesn't have the right to destroy publicly something he's been paid money for... Over 60% of the dialogue in the picture is out of Hemingway's book... We treated it as something Holy... We showed the script to him and he made some changes. We even showed it to him again after the changes were made... If the picture doesn't satisfy Hemingway he should read the book again... because the book won't satisfy him... I don't think he saw the picture. I think someone told him about it.

Flynn's performance was highly acclaimed and led to a series of roles where he played alcoholics.

Later version

A later film version of the novel, directed by James Goldstone, was made in 1984.