This dense adaption of Ernest Hemmingway's novel features Gary Cooper as American soldier Lt. Henry and his illfated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Hellen Hayes during World War I. Filmed in beautiful Italy the two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemmingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Frank Borzage's direction.
The 1932 version of A Farewell to Arms owes as much to the shimmering house style of Paramount Pictures as it does the novel by Ernest Hemingway. If Hemingway purists can get past the romanticising of the book, however, this film offers its own glossy appeal. On the Italian front in World War I an American ambulance driver (Gary Cooper) falls in love with a nurse (Helen Hayes). Cooper was a Hemingway friend in real life, and later played the hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; his boyish simplicity is just right for director Frank Borzage's heartfelt approach. The Oscar-winning cinematography of ace cameraman Charles Lang is the kind of lush black and white that can capture the glow from a cigarette as it plays across Cooper's darkened face--a breathtaking touch. The jaded battle scenes show the influence of the hit film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, especially in a gripping montage depicting Cooper's progress alone through the war zone. Hemingway would have none of it, of course; he once disdainfully wrote that "in the first picture version Lt. Henry deserted because he didn't get any mail and then the whole Italian Army went along, it seems, to keep him company". This is first and foremost a love story, however, and as such it succeeds beautifully, right through to the remarkably intense ending. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
This dense adaption of Ernest Hemmingway's novel features Gary Cooper as American soldier Lt. Henry and his ill-fated love affair with British Nurse Catherine portrayed by Hellen Hayes during World War I. Filmed in beautiful Italy the two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Lt. Henry's internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemmingway's theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognised under Frank Borzage's direction.
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