Out of Africa is drawn from the life and writings of Danish author Isak Dinesen, who during the time that the film's events occured was known by her married name, Karen Blixen-Flecke. For convenience's sake, Karen (Meryl Streep) has married Baron Bor Blixen-Flecke (Klaus Maria Brandauer). In 1914, the Baron moves himself and his wife to a plantation in Nairobi, then leaves Karen to his own devices as he returns to his womanizing and drinking. Soon, Karen has fallen in love with charming white hunter Denys Finch Hatton (Robert Redford), who prefers a no-strings relationship. And that's about it for the next 150 minutes. While the Redford-Streep chemistry keeps the film alive, Out of Africa is one of those films that made piles of money and earned shelves full of Oscars when it came out, but within a year everyone was wondering what they'd seen in the picture. For all its much touted (and deservedly praised) location photography, the film's best scene -- a lengthy romantic rendezvous by a roaring fireplace-could just have easily been filmed at one-tenth of the cost at Television City in Hollywood. We aren't about to take anything away from the excellence of the star performances or of Sydney Pollack's sensitive direction, nor to minimize the contributions of screenwriter Kurt Luedtke, who used four separate books as his source material. It's simply that Out of Africa would have been equally as effective at 120 minutes rather than 150, and as a made-for-TV movie rather than a big-budget feature.