Underrated

I think it's the pacing of the film, which was a little long at times (then again, I was watching it at 1 am) but I think worth every minute. I enjoyed it a lot and I felt that the stillness of the film, how the acting was underplayed, was right for this movie.

This film is as much a love letter to Ava Gardner's beauty as it is to the majestic Spain. It's as though Ernest Hemingway made a fairy tale and this is the adaptation.

"Go on, tell me...tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood."

I don't know about the men that have seen this movie but being a woman I can say for my part that they don't get better than this when it comes to a love story! This movie takes us beyond the norm with Mz Gardener and Mr Mason playing their parts to perfection, I can just picture the scene at the end when she knows that death is on its way and she still holds fast to the love she is giving her life for !!!This movie can mezmerize me, I do not want to see it in color, I believe it would take away the rawness of the film itself.One of my very favorite, all time movies.

I saw it on TCM last night, and it was underrated there too. They gave it only 2 1/2 stars.
I remember this film from my days of watching The Late Show as quietly as possible so my parents wouldn't know I was out of bed...I loved it then, and so I sat through last night despite TCM's rating. It was well worth it.

Hadn't seen it in a number of years and really enjoyed it, especially with Cardiff's Technicolor photography restored by the Eastman House. I did find that the use of soft-focus for Gardner's close-ups gave the overall proceedings a bit of unevenness, though

"In my case, self-absorption is completely justified."

I agree it's low but who cares about the user rating? I can kind of understand the rating though - the first time I saw it I had a middling reaction. But on second viewing I liked it a lot more. It's a strange, intriguing, visually pleasing movie.

The look of the film is great and few films have the feeling of a fable like this one does, but the plot is so predictable.

As if...