I remember seeing this film when it came out in 1977. The story of the publication of ISLANDS IN THE STREAM was a major literary story of the late 1970s, as Hemingway's widow found the unpublished novel, and got it published with much fanfare. Of course any time a major artist's work is rediscovered or found for the first time it is a news story. As one of the five premier stylists in American literature, Hemingway's prose is always a matter of interest. But the critics soon pointed out that it was second-rate Hemingway, derivative of other novels (TO HAVE AND TO HOLD for example). Still it was worth reading - as said in another review here, second-rate Hemingway is better than most people's first rate material.
George C. Scott is Thomas Hudson, an artist living in semi-retirement in the Bahamas during World War II. He has left the world and it's problems behind him, including his failures as a husband and seemingly as a father of three sons. But that outside world has a habit of catching up to Hudson. One of the most telling moments in the film is when he witnesses from a distance a U-boat attacking some freighter or ship, and subsequently sees wreckage and dead bodies. Even in his corner of the world one wonders if he's escaped to paradise or a fool's paradise.
The meaning of the title is those "islands" of contact that we have between ourselves in the "stream" we call life. For Hudson discovers that he can't isolate himself from those islands - they all find him whether they are the forces of an evil German regime or his own family. He is visited by his three sons (Hart Bochner, Brad Savage, Michael - James Wixted) in an attempt to come to grips with the boys that he failed as a parent. There is considering bonding while they are together, culminating in one of the best sequences in the film when the youngest boy (while they are deep sea fishing) lands a marlin and refuses to release the fishing pole despite the fact that he can't hold onto it forever and his hands are badly cut and bleeding. In the end he loses the marlin, but Bochner (the oldest son) tells Scott that the youngest one is the best of them all for his grit in the face of that losing situation.
Bochner too springs a surprise - he wants to have Scott's blessing in his decision to join the RAF. Scott is concerned and agrees. Subsequently his concern is justified when his wife (Clair Bloom) shows up to tell him that Bochner was killed in action.
The critics of the film usually pounce on the latter half, wherein the similarities to TO HAVE AND TO HOLD show up. Hudson gets drawn into rescuing Jewish refugees trying to reach Cuba. In the ensuing events his close friend Eddie (David Hemmings) gets killed. Eddie is a "rummy" type, like Walter Brennan's similarly named Eddie in TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. That is an unfortunate similarity. So is the death shortly after (also from a gun battle in the course of helping the refugees) of Hudson - which is closer to the actual novel TO HAVE AND TO HOLD than the Bogart film was. But there is one final bit at the end which I thought was a nice cinematic touch. As he is dying, Scott visualizes all the friends and relatives he has gotten close to (including his surviving sons and his wife and his housekeeper/assistant). He sees them all saying goodbye to him. He does not see Bochner or Hemmings, for he is alive and the last thoughts of one passing out of that stream we call life should be of the living. There may be plenty of time for reunions with the dead afterward, but that would be the subject of a different type of novel.
George C. Scott is Thomas Hudson, an artist living in semi-retirement in the Bahamas during World War II. He has left the world and it's problems behind him, including his failures as a husband and seemingly as a father of three sons. But that outside world has a habit of catching up to Hudson. One of the most telling moments in the film is when he witnesses from a distance a U-boat attacking some freighter or ship, and subsequently sees wreckage and dead bodies. Even in his corner of the world one wonders if he's escaped to paradise or a fool's paradise.
The meaning of the title is those "islands" of contact that we have between ourselves in the "stream" we call life. For Hudson discovers that he can't isolate himself from those islands - they all find him whether they are the forces of an evil German regime or his own family. He is visited by his three sons (Hart Bochner, Brad Savage, Michael - James Wixted) in an attempt to come to grips with the boys that he failed as a parent. There is considering bonding while they are together, culminating in one of the best sequences in the film when the youngest boy (while they are deep sea fishing) lands a marlin and refuses to release the fishing pole despite the fact that he can't hold onto it forever and his hands are badly cut and bleeding. In the end he loses the marlin, but Bochner (the oldest son) tells Scott that the youngest one is the best of them all for his grit in the face of that losing situation.
Bochner too springs a surprise - he wants to have Scott's blessing in his decision to join the RAF. Scott is concerned and agrees. Subsequently his concern is justified when his wife (Clair Bloom) shows up to tell him that Bochner was killed in action.
The critics of the film usually pounce on the latter half, wherein the similarities to TO HAVE AND TO HOLD show up. Hudson gets drawn into rescuing Jewish refugees trying to reach Cuba. In the ensuing events his close friend Eddie (David Hemmings) gets killed. Eddie is a "rummy" type, like Walter Brennan's similarly named Eddie in TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. That is an unfortunate similarity. So is the death shortly after (also from a gun battle in the course of helping the refugees) of Hudson - which is closer to the actual novel TO HAVE AND TO HOLD than the Bogart film was. But there is one final bit at the end which I thought was a nice cinematic touch. As he is dying, Scott visualizes all the friends and relatives he has gotten close to (including his surviving sons and his wife and his housekeeper/assistant). He sees them all saying goodbye to him. He does not see Bochner or Hemmings, for he is alive and the last thoughts of one passing out of that stream we call life should be of the living. There may be plenty of time for reunions with the dead afterward, but that would be the subject of a different type of novel.