JohnHowardReid Copyright 5 January 1933 by Paramount Productions, Inc. New York opening at the Criterion, 8 December 1932. U.K. release: 28 October 1933. Sydney release at the Prince Edward, 21 June 1933 (ran 2 weeks). 10 reels. 78 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An American ambulance driver falls in love with an English nurse on the Italian front during the Great War.NOTES: Nominated for the following Academy Awards: Best Picture (won by Cavalcade); Cinematography (won!); Art Direction (Cavalcade was the winner); Sound Recording (won!). Number 4 on the National Board of Review list of Exceptional American Films; number 6 on The Film Daily poll. Re-made in 1957 (by David O. Selznick) with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones. Semi-official remake: Force of Arms.COMMENT: When they tell you a picture's a classic you know it must be dull, so you do your best to avoid it. And when you remember what a chore it was to sit through the long-winded overblown 1957 version, that goes double for "A Farewell to Arms".Fortunately, Borzage's film isn't a classic after all. It's a solidly gripping, horrifyingly real, pacily directed story that grabs your total attention from first to last. Splendidly produced on a lavish budget with awesomely realistic effects, set against a marvelously re-created and starkly effective canvas of Italy at war, it's yet an intimate love story that comes across with as much dramatic intensity today as 70 years ago.Part of this success is due to the powerful plot and dialogue, part to Borzage's skilled and inventive direction, and part to the convincing acting by such committed players as Cooper and Hayes. True Adolphe Menjou is not particularly successful in his attempts at an Italian accent (Jack La Rue is even worse) but this is a piffling point that doesn't really matter. Cooper is so earnestly sincere and Hayes so convincingly vulnerable, they carry the rest of the cast with them. (Not that astute actresses like Mary Philips and Blanche Frederici need any help).We expect the sets to be impressive and the camera-work mightily distinguished (in view of their awards), but it is a surprise to find such a powerfully expressive montage as the episode in which Cooper deserts his post and makes his way with refugees to Milan. There is no dialogue. The montage relies upon music, sound effects and surrealist images starkly juxtaposed in the style of Eisenstein. A most compellingly crafted sequence indeed — its terrifying odyssey in miniature is utterly unforgettable.Just as the film editing is remarkably punchy by Hollywood standards, Borzage's direction was never more dramatically fluid and inventive. Not only does he set his camera in motion for dramatic effect as it traverses marble-floored hospital corridors (and even for one memorable sequence assumes a first-person viewpoint), but this probing camera can also be pointedly witty while it explores the mean furnishings of Catherine's room as she writes of their charms to her lover.According to Homer Dickens in The Films of Gary Cooper (Citadel Press, 1970), two endings were filmed. The happy ending was ultimately used (to Hemingway's displeasure), but the print under review restores the original ending of the book. (This print was put out by Warner Bros. in the 1950s after they were forced to acquire the rights because of their unofficial up-date, Force of Arms, which credited its story to Richard Tregaskis). It's hard to imagine A Farewell to Arms with a happy ending. The film is now artistically whole and complete. Its mood never falters.Summing up, I suppose we must call this movie a "classic". Yet it's anything but dull or dated. Pacily packed with incident, suspense, surprise, terror, tragedy, its grip is not always grim, but it never lessens its hold. Its plea is rarely overtly stated but is skilfully and effectively expressed in its theme and attitude.

writers_reign In many ways Frank Borzage was the Douglas Sirk of the late twenties/early thirties churning out the same kind of fodder albeit without the gloss that Sirk was able to achieve via colour. Here Borzage weighs in with the very first adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway book - both Hems novels and short stories were eventually adapted for the screen) and on the whole he makes a decent fist of it. The novel itself was barely in the bookstores when the film was made which meant that literate filmgoers would have room to criticize the films' several departures whilst non-readers would accept it on its own terms. Leading lady Helen Hayes was primarily a stage actress - indeed so eminent was she that a Broadway Theatre was named after her - who made a late impact on the screen in Airport some thirty years after 'Farewell'. Watching the film for the first time some 80 years after its initial release I was unable to detect much real chemistry between Coop and Hayes albeit it was good to see Coop doing vulnerable, not a quality readily associated with him but if anyone walks away with the movie it is Adolph Menjou as Rinaldi, Frederic Henry's surgeon friend who, for various reasons, contrives to keep the lovers apart and even break them up. Certainly worth seeing without being memorable.

Larry41OnEbay-2 Some interesting facts in a story loosely based on Hemingway's experiences, but he didn't like it. 1) Semi-autobiographical novel by Ernest Hemingway, published 1929, still in print. 2) The title is from a 16th century poem by George Peele. 3) Hemingway was an American ambulance driver for Italian army during WWI.4) Hemingway, known for being ornery cuss had little use for people in the film industry. But he did like Cooper and they became close friends for the rest of their lives.5) The studio shot two different endings so theater owners could pick which their audience would like best. Hemingway hated that but liked the $24k for the rights.6) Helen Hayes, although happily married at the time had a crush on Cooper admitting in her autobiography… 'like half the women in the world, I was, in the words of the Noel Coward song, "Mad about the boy."'7) Helen Hayes, First Lady of the American Theater, was born in year 1900 in Washington D.C. a) On stage at age 5; Broadway at 9 and by age 18, she was a star. b) In 1928 she married playwright Charles MacArthur, they moved to Hollywood and she won her first Oscar for THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET (1931). c) She won a Tony Award the first year they were presented, in 1947, for HAPPY BIRTHDAY. d) She won Televisions Emmy award in 1952 & 1958. e) She returned to films as the Dowager Empress in ANASTASIA (1956) and won another Oscar for her role in AIRPORT (1970). f) Her son is actor James MacArthur (of HAWAII FIVE-O fame). 9) Gary Cooper born on the Montana ranch of his wealthy father, and educated in a prestigious school in England — Cooper was a rugged frontiersman with the poise of a cultured gentleman. a) Because he failed at political cartooning he sought work as a cowboy extra in movies. b) While making THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH movie star Clara Bow also took an interest in Cooper seeing that he was in more of her films. c) Silent films taught him how to act. d) Cooper's first talkie success was THE VIRGINIAN (1929), in which he developed the taciturn, laconic speech patterns that became fodder for every impressionist on radio, nightclubs, and television. e) Cooper alternated between tie-and-tails parts in DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933) and he-man adventurer roles in THE LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER (1935) for most of the 1930s. f) In 1941, he was honored with an Oscar for SERGEANT YORK, and was nominated for, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES. g) Even those co-workers who thought that Cooper wasn't exerting himself at all when filming were amazed to see how, in the final product, Cooper was actually out-acting everyone else, albeit in a subtle, unobtrusive manner. h) Some of my favorite Cooper films: MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, MEET JOHN DOE, BALL OF FIRE, FOUNTAINHEAD. i) In the 1950s he made mostly westerns like HIGH NOON, Cooper retained his box-office stature. Privately, however, he was plagued by illnesses finally dying of lung cancer in 1961. 10) Adolph Menjou, who plays Cooper's drinking buddy and an Army surgeon actually served as a captain in the Ambulance Corps for 3 years during WWI. a) Made more than 100 films moving from silent film leading man to talkies and later supporting roles. b) Menjou was Oscar nominated for THE FRONT PAGE the year before tonight's film in 1931. He played the newspaper editor later played by Cary Grant in the remake HIS GIRL Friday. c) In the 1950's Menjou was a "friendly witness" before the HUAC commission. d) His last notable film was the classic anti-war picture PATHS OF GLORY (1957) playing the villainous WWI General for director Stanley Kubrick.11) Director Frank Borzage was one of the early major directors of Hollywood and like his contemporaries JOHN FORD, HOWARD HAWKS & KING VIDOR they all made the transition from silents to talkies but only Borzage won an Oscar as a director in both eras. His Academy Award for Best Director was for his earlier romantic WWI film, SEVENTH HEAVEN.Remade with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones, A Farewell to Arms (1957) and as a TV miniseries with George Hamilton and Vanessa Redgrave, "A Farewell to Arms" (1966).In reality, she (the nurse) dumped Hemingway as he was 5 years younger (too young in her eyes) and she went back to the older Italian man!!! Hemingway was so hurt that when he wrote the novel he killed her off.

Space_Mafune Gary Cooper stars as Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I. There he meets and falls in love with a nurse named Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) but the war looms heavy over the couple's chances for happiness.While this movie feels a bit dated and the war scenes go on too long and seem to be too darkly lit, this is epic romance that ultimately proves hard to take one's eyes off. You root for the characters and want to overcome the odds despite all that stands in their way making the final reality of what ultimately happens all the more potent. A real tear-jerker for the soft hearted this one. Great romance! Let's love tonight for we may not have tomorrow...the harsh reality of war.