Ernest Hemingway at the Finca Vigia in Cuba.
Amigo and Hemingway scholar Craig McDonald kicked this one up — the first American film shot in Cuba in more than 50 years. Looks good — I’ll definitely be in the seat for it.
The premise that the FBI was out to get Papa may seem far-fetched, especially since Hemingway in his later years was paranoid. But, as they say, just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they ain’t out to get ya. The FBI of the era was keeping tabs on all sorts of cultural figures that J. Edgar Hoover considered subversive or potentially subversive. Hemingway was one of ’em.
I’m thinking Craig needs to lead a Hemingway tour to Key West and Cuba. Just sayin’…
BTW: Check out Craig’s “Print the Legend”:
It was the shot heard ’round the world: On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway died from a shotgun blast to the head.
It’s 1965: two men have come to Idaho to confront the widow Hemingway—men who have doubts about the true circumstances of Hemingway’s death. One is crime novelist Hector Lassiter, the oldest and best of Hem’s friends…the last man standing of the Lost Generation. Hector has heard intimations of some surviving Hemingway manuscripts: a “lost” chapter of A Moveable Feast and a full-length manuscript written by a deluded Hemingway that Hector fears might compromise or harm his own reputation. What Hector finds are pieces of his own, long-ago stolen writings, now in danger of being foisted upon an unsuspecting public as Ernest Hemingway’s work.
The other man is scholar Richard Paulson, a man with a dark agenda who sets out to prove that Mary Hemingway murdered Papa. Paulson and his young, pregnant wife Hannah, herself an aspiring writer, travel to Idaho to interview Mrs. Hemingway who believes Paulson has come to write her hagiography.
As Hector digs into the mystery of his and Hemingway’s lost writings, he uncovers an audacious, decades-long conspiracy tied to J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.
Wayne says
If Craig leads a tour of Cuba, I’d like to talk with him. My stepson, who now works for the feds, studied abroad in Havana for a semester, spent over 2 years in Nicaragua, and speaks fluent Spanish. If a guide is needed, I’d be glad to offer our services. Of course I’d need to go along to carry luggage.
JimC says
Craig’s gonna need BIG suitcases.
Annie Pick says
This sounds interesting, the man had an interesting life and probably his time in Cuba topped the list.
Craig Rullman says
1) My favorite picture of Hem, which I had taped above my desk for five years.
2) I’ll be the first guy in the movie house, an hour early, with a lure in my pocket for luck
3) There WAS a lost manuscript…tossed by Hem’s Ex off a train…
4) They glued together the posthumous “Garden of Eden” out of pieces left over after the personal in-extremis Idaho shotgunning
5) Hem was definitely slipping and paranoid at the end–endured shock treatment etc..
6) The FBI probably DID come after him, the scurrilous rascals…the timing is right and Hoover WAS wearing women’s underwear behind his desk at the time
7) Long Live Papa, who taught how to see the modern world, before it was modern.
JimC says
OK, I’ll be the second guy in the movie house…
Craig McDonald says
If I was to lead some sort of Cuban expedition, it would more likely be with some like-minded authors in a kind of boozy literary spin on the Expendables in an attempt to liberate the Finca Vigia and reclaim it for America.
Craig R: Quite agree about that picture of Hem with the shotgun in his Cuban house. It was actually used for the cover for the first American (and Italian) edition of PRINT THE LEGEND. (And the FBI paper trail on Hemingway surveillance does exist; I quote a few lines here and there in that same novel.)
All that said, I’m more than a bit lukewarm toward this movie for many reasons, not the least of them being I don’t think they got the Ernest Hemingway casting quite right.
JimC says
I’m putting Print The Legend (with the correct cover) into Craig R.’s hands tonight. We’re turning a wine bar into a folkie honky-tonk for the evening.
I’m down with The Expendables IV — Liberate the Finca!
Wayne says
Craig,
They couldn’t cast the Hemingway part for the same reason it’s impossible to cast an actor to play Ava Gardner, Orson Welles, Katherine Hepburn, Jack Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe or Humphrey Bogart. The original was an original and can’t be duplicated. I suppose most of us will watch the movie regardless.
If you plan to storm the Finca, I have an old 12 guage pump and a single shot .270 and I’d love to throw in with you.
Wayne
Craig McDonald says
More I think on it, the more I think you and I and some others need to pitch this to Hollywood, Jim: a bunch of novelists arm themselves to the teeth and occupy Papa’s place while a frustrated and visiting Obama tries to enjoy himself at a baseball game with Raoul. Hell, it practically writes itself!
JimC says
Hah!
Nick S. says
I’ve never been the same since the Nick Adams stories, especially “The Big Two Hearted River”. Still missed Papa, still missed.