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A Farewell to Arms
1932 Romance / Drama / War
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Credits
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Director: Frank Borzage
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Script: Benjamin Glazer, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Laurence Stallings, Ernest Hemingway (novel)
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Photo: Charles Lang
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Music: Milan Roder
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Cast: Helen Hayes (Catherine Barkley),
Gary Cooper (Lieutenant Frederic Henry),
Adolphe Menjou (Major Rinaldi),
Mary Philips (Helen Ferguson),
Jack La Rue (Priest),
Blanche Friderici (Head Nurse),
Mary Forbes (Miss Van Campen),
Gilbert Emery (British Major)
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Country: USA
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Language: English
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Runtime: 80 min; B&W
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Summary
During World War I, a young American, Frederick Henry,
enlists as an ambulance driver in the Italian army. He meets and
falls in love with a young English nurse, Catherine Barkley.
Badly injured in a bombardment, Henry ends up in a hospital in Milan,
where he is cared for by his beloved Catherine. As Henry
recovers, he and Catherine pursue an idyllic romance, which ends all to
soon when Henry is sent back to the Front. When he later hears
that Catherine is pregnant with his child, Henry resolves to find her,
even if it means deserting from the army...
Review
Frank Borzage’s masterful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929
semi-autobiographical novel may at times appear uneven and slightly
dated, but it is still a film with great visual impact and harrowing
emotional intensity. The film, a tragic love story set against
the backdrop of one of the bloodiest conflicts in history, is most
noted for Charles Lang’s evocative expressionistic
cinematography. The photography, lighting and set design conspire
to give the film a poetical dreamlike quality, with a striking sense of
realism which calls to mind another great WWI film, Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front
(1930).
A Farewell to Arms brings
together two of Hollywood’s leading lights at the time, Gary Cooper and
Helen Hayes. Although for much of the film Cooper’s performance
is a little too restrained, the actor redeems himself in the last few
scenes with his heart-breaking portrayal of man who sees his entire
world fall apart. Helen Hayes also brings great sensitivity and
is particularly effective in those low-key sequences where her
character is separated from her lover. The film’s depiction of
the horrors of war is pretty well restricted to one short but very
impressive montage sequence, which conveys the horrifying scale of the
brutality and carnage of the First World War.
Ernest Hemingway was greatly displeased with this adaptation of his
novel. He felt too much emphasis was given to the central
romance, to the extent that much of the background, with its graphic
depiction of WWI heroism and suffering, was lost. His biggest contention was
with the film’s modified ending. Anxious that the original ending
was too depressing, the film’s producers decided that an alternative,
more optimistic, version be shot. This bastardised version was
only ever shown in provincial cinemas in the United States.
The film was nominated for four Oscars in 1934 (including Best Picture)
and won two - for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Recording.
It was later remade as Force of Arms
(1951) by Michael Curtiz and A
Farewell to Arms (1957) by Charles Vidor. Frank Borzage’s
version is regarded as the best, and is also widely considered to be
the best adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel to date.
© James Travers 2008
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