A Farewell to Arms

Plot synopsis:
On the Italian front during World War I, Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper), an American serving as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army, delivers some wounded soldiers to a hospital. There he meets his friend, Italian Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), a doctor. They go out carousing, but are interrupted by a bombing raid. Frederic and English Red Cross nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) take shelter in the same place. The somewhat drunk Frederic makes a poor first impression.
Rinaldi persuades Frederic to go on a double romantic date with him and two nurses, Catherine and her friend Helen Ferguson (Mary Philips). However, Rinaldi becomes annoyed when Frederic prefers Catherine, the woman the major had chosen for himself. Away by themselves, Frederic learns that she was engaged to a soldier who was killed in battle. In the darkness, he romantically seduces her, over her half-hearted resistance, and is surprised to discover she is a virgin.
Their romantic relationship (forbidden by army regulation) is discovered. At Rinaldi's suggestion, Catherine is transferred to Milan. When Frederick is wounded by artillery, he finds himself in the hospital where Catherine now works. They continue their affair until he is sent back to the war. Now pregnant, Catherine runs away to Switzerland, but her many letters to her beloved sweetheart/lover are intercepted by Rinaldi, who feels he needs to rescue his friend from the romantic entanglement. Meanwhile, Frederic's letters to her are sent to the hospital which she has abandoned.
After a time, Frederic cannot stand being away from Catherine any longer. He deserts his post and heads out in search of her. Returning first to the hospital in Milan, he attempts to convince the reluctant Ferguson to reveal Catherine's whereabouts to him. Displaying animosity toward Frederic, all she reveals finally is that Catherine has left and is pregnant with Frederic's child. Rinaldi visits him at the hotel where he is hiding, and, upon hearing of Catherine's pregnancy, out of remorse for having interfered with their correspondence, tells Frederic where she is living. He rows across a lake to her. Meanwhile, Catherine is delighted when she is told she has finally received some mail, but faints when she is given all of her romantic love letters, marked "Return to Sender". She is taken to the hospital, where her child is delivered stillborn. She herself is in grave danger. Frederic arrives, and just as an armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary is announced, Catherine tragically dies, with him at her side.

Tags: tragedy

Review:
A Farewell to Arms is definitely in keeping with that tradition.The one thing that Hemingway did like was the casting of Gary Cooper as the hero Fredric Henry.
DeMille who returned to the studio he helped found.Helen Hayes made several good films in the early thirties, this one and the one she won an Oscar for, The Sins of Madelon Claudet.
But she never became a movie box office draw so she returned to the Broadway stage where she reigned as a Queen.Adolphe Menjou replete with Italian accent plays Cooper's friend and romantic rival, Major Rinaldi.
Soon he would sign a long term contract with MGM and gain his greatest roles during the sound era.Hemingway purists might shun A Farewell to Arms, but those who love their screen romances, soggier the better will rave about this film..
All's Fair in Love and War. A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Paramount, 1932), directed by Frank Borzage, is the first, so far, of three screen adaptations to Ernest Hemingway's classic 1930 novel.
It is a tender love story set against the background of the Great War (World War I) involving two young people, Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper), an American lieutenant and ambulance driver in the Italian unit, and Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), a war nurse, who are kept apart by Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), Frederic's Italian friend, who not only loves Catherine, but doesn't want him to "lose his head over a woman."In the supporting cast are Mary Phillips (Helen Ferguson, a nurse and Catherine closest friend who objects to her continued romance with the young American); Jack LaRue (the soft-spoken Italian priest); and Blanche Frederici (the stern head nurse).
Adolphe Menjou offers fine characterization of an Italian, convincing, right down to his spoken dialect.A highly popular war drama in its day, which concentrates more on the relationship between a lieutenant and a nurse than soldiers on the battlefield, A FAREWELL TO ARMS earned itself an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1932-33, but none for its acting.
While these films have used this method to an extent to most of the story, A FAREWELL TO ARMS presents this technique briefly but effectively.Remade twice during the 1950s, first as FORCE OF ARMS (Warner Brothers, 1950) starring William Holden and Nancy Olson, and later under its original title in 1957 for 20th Century-Fox starring Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson, the third, being the better known of the earlier two, might have surpassed the original had it not been so awkward, overlong (two and-a-half hours) and overblown.
As it stands, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, a poignant love story, which may not stir up as many tears and sobs as it once did way back when, it is, however, a worthy novel to screen offering, ranking this the first, and best, of two remakes combined.
The 1932 version of "A Farewell to Arms" was the first time a film had been based on one of Hemingway's works, and there is an obvious difference between it and the 1957 remake; it is only slightly more than half the length, at 80 minutes as opposed to 152.
In 1932 he was still an up-and-coming young author; by 1957, although he was still alive and only in his late fifties, he had achieved the status of Great American Novelist, and the film that was made in that year suffers from an over-reverential attitude to his work, treating it like a solemn classical text that needed an equally solemn cinematic treatment to do it justice.
The film tells the story of the romance between Frederick, an American volunteer serving with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver, and Catherine, a nurse with the British Red Cross.
Gary Cooper's Frederick is similarly far more animated than Rock Hudson's stony-faced interpretation of the role, and he receives good support from Adolphe Menjou as Frederick's comrade Major Rinaldi.
The 1932 film version of Ernest Hemmingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS will never challenge the likes of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT--but while it fails to capture the horrors of World War I it is remarkably effective at capturing the novel's sparse and unyielding prose.
She is costarred with Gary Cooper in one of his earliest leading roles, and while the pairing is unexpected, it is also unexpectedly good: they have tremendous screen chemistry, and in spite of the film's dated approach they easily draw you into this story of an ill-fated wartime romance between a nurse and an ambulance driver.
There's World War I going and Lieutenant Frederick Henry is fighting for his life.The war becomes secondary when he meets and falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley.Having big emotions for another person during the war is dangerous since there's the chance of losing that person.They're both afraid.He may not admit that, but they're both afraid.Frank Borzage's A Farewell to Arms (1932) is based on Ernest Hemingway's novel.It won two Academy Awards from best cinematography (Charles Lang) and best sound, recording (Franklin Hansen).It would have deserved awards for acting, as well.The charismatic Gary Cooper and the admirable Helen Hayes do a fantastic job as the leading couple.Then there's also the great Adolphe Menjou as Major Rinaldi.The dialogue is brilliant.Lots of lovely words are spoken about love.I know there are many people who would say a movie from 75 years back is too old for them.I'd say that's their lost.A Farewell to Arms offers great feelings from the first meeting till the tragic ending..
Time has been kind to this movie which goes beyond era and place and develops its characters and story well enough so that they transcend the 1932 style of making films and the WWI setting to shine in a classic movie for any age.
A Farewell to Arms features the expected good performances from Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Adolphe Menjou.
Frank Borzage's 1932 version of "A Farewell To Arms" has the distinction of being the first film adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel.
Yet a surprising amount of the novel's spirit does survive the transition.In a story not much different than what you might have read in high school, Lt. Henry (Gary Cooper) is an American ambulance corpsman serving with the Italian Army as it fights the Austrians along the Piave, a bloody backwater campaign of World War I.
Henry meets nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) and they quickly fall in love.
In the book, though, Catherine wasn't regretting sending him off to war unmarried, but without their having had sex.Yet a minute later, her lines come directly from the book, Catherine noting her daydreams about her old lover turning up at her hospital with a saber cut, then adding: "He didn't have a saber cut, they blew him to bits." For Hollywood, violence was always easier material than sex.Since this is a film made before the inhibiting Hays Code (Will, not Helen), Borzage and his writers are able to get away with a bit more than they would have just a couple of years later.
If it wasn't for war, Rinaldi might value something more than his next bottle or bedpartner, and Menjou, in a final triumphant moment, lets you know it.Pacifism, in movies as in life, only takes one so far.
By contrast, too much of the movie's finale is played for the cheaper seats, and doesn't stand up today.But the film does stand up better than many later Hemingway adaptations, with its strong cast, inspired tracking shots, and a mostly successful effort by Borzage to translate Hemingway's terse prose style into film.
In fact the film version is more {A Farwell to} A Farwell to Arms because only the relation ship between Henry and Nurse Bartlett resembles the novel as the rest takes the essence of the book but is very free in interpretation.
The two main characters Henry and nurse Bartlett are fleshed out and made real thanks to the talents of a young Gary Cooper and especially an excellent natural performance by Helen Hayes.
A Farewell to Arms (1932)An unabashed over the top war romance (by Hemingway) and two young actors at the peak of their abilities.
Add some really vigorous filming (some of the actions scenes in the battle are frightening and awesome), and you can see why this is such a powerful movie.There is a little sense of familiarity to this kind of story, and an old fashioned romantic flavor to it (the book is similar in outline but slightly cooler, more prosaic, more intense, more true).
Gary Cooper never sits right for me--his facial twitches remain twitches, his woodenness you can knock on with your knuckles--but this is one of his best performances, alongside "High Noon." The photography by Charles Lang is really one of the highlights, and in weird way there are so many wordless part of the film, it has the strength of a great silent film with sound effects.
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.
Helen Hayes is a World War I nurse who falls for wounded soldier Gary Cooper.
******** A Farewell to Arms (12/8/32) Frank Borzage ~ Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Philips.
Frederic and Catherine begin a romance in the midst of war.Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes are doing their romantic best.
Based on the Ernest Hemingway novel and starring Gary Cooper, this has the potential to be a classic.
Even given the fact that the film looks rather primitive when seen on TV these days, at least GARY COOPER and HELEN HAYES do considerably better than ROCK HUDSON and JENNIFER JONES in the Selznick remake.But still, this is just another example of how difficult it seems to be to transfer Hemingway to the screen.
So many plot elements from the book are missing in order to focus on the love story between deserter Cooper and nurse Hayes in the midst of World War I.HELEN HAYES was a great stage star lured to Hollywood who soon discovered that her talents were more suited to the stage, even if she did win an Oscar for THE SIN OF MADELEINE CLAUDET.
Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes star as an injured soldier and a nurse who meet during World War I.
Director Frank Borzage takes a risque approach to the story as he was not locked in by the Hays code.Lt Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) is an American a former architecture student serving with the Italian troops as an ambulance driver in world war one alongside his best friend Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou) who is a doctor.Frederic instantly falls in love with an English nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) who he meets.
While there is nothing really wrong with the movie, and while Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes work all right in the leading roles, it doesn't really match the standard of the Hemingway novel.
Perhaps that is an unfair comparison, since it would probably be impossible to recreate visually the way that Hemingway's distinctive writing so effectively establishes settings and themes (and the book "A Farewell To Arms" also drew on many of Hemingway's personal experiences).In its own right, the film works pretty well most of the time.
A Farewell to Arms, originally a novel by Ernest Hemingway, is a classic movie from 1932.
It was good, would've been good had I not read the book -- as a classic Hollywood romance, and Cooper and Hayes are excellent actors.
(The 1957 remake, generally regarded as the inferior of the two, is yet almost twice as long!) A somewhat dated, slightly creaky affair, the film is of interest today mainly for the excellent performances turned in by its three leads and for the Oscar-winning photography of Charles Lang (his only Academy Award, despite a more-than-impressive filmography).In the picture, we meet an American ambulance driver named Frederic Henry (played by Gary Cooper), who is serving on the Italian front during WW1.
A doctor friend of his, an Italian named Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), introduces him to a British nurse, Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes, riding high after her recent Oscar win for 1931's little-seen "The Sin of Madelon Claudet," and who largely forsook Hollywood after 1935, to become "The First Lady of the American Theater").
The two instantly fall in lust (American nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, Hemingway's inspiration for the Hayes character, who he'd met while injured in Italy, had rebuffed the author's amorous advances), and after Henry is wounded at the front, Catherine tends to his wounds in hospital, becoming, uh, knocked up in the process.
(Like many folks, I have a feeling, I've long thought that Menjou was French, whereas he was actually born in Pittsburgh, U.S.A.!) Director Frank Borzage, who would go on to work with Cooper in the 1936 Marlene Dietrich vehicle "Desire," does a thoroughly admirable job here, while Charles Lang certainly did earn his Oscar, especially by dint of two powerful scenes: the POV shots from Henry's moving hospital gurney, and the montage sequence of Henry's trek to find Catherine in Brissago, Switzerland.
Coop did a bang-up job portraying Lt. Frederick Henry, an American who volunteers with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver, who falls in love with a British nurse named Catherine Barkley, (Helen Hayes, who also was wonderful).
Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes play a young couple united by the war who fall in love.
He interacts well with Helen Hayes as Catherine Barkley, a nurse whom ambulance driver Cooper enjoys a passionate romance with in the midst of World War One. Menjou creates a memorable Rinaldi.This is a neatly directed and surprisingly tidy film, one that holds up remarkably well for modern audiences.
It contains some very memorable images, not least the stunning shot of hundreds of sad, white crosses across the battleground landscape.It is interesting to note this was made Pre-Code, so Cooper and Hayes do get some romantic scenes that probably would not have made it past the censors in just a couple of years time (one of their kisses is surprisingly erotic in nature).
Also notable is that touching final scene between Cooper and Hayes, with Catherine in Frederic's arms- it would be used again, more famously, in Wuthering Heights (1939), with another dying 'Cathy' being carried to the window by her love.A definitive 'Farewell to Arms' has not yet been made, however this comes the closest when compared to the overblown Selznick adaptation starring Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson..
"A Farewell to Arms" is based upon the semi-autobiographical novel of Ernest Hemingway's experiences when he served as an ambulance driver for the Italians who fought the Austrians and Hungarians in World War I.
Rinaldi happens to like English Nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), but early on, after she is introduced to Henry, she and the young lieutenant are greatly attracted to each other.
Gary Cooper was destined to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: Sergeant York (1940) and High Noon (1952).(PS: I also reviewed the 1957 version of "A Farewell to Arms" for IMDb on 2 April 2014.).
This yarn takes place during WW1 finding an ill-fated romance between ambulance driver Lt. Frederic Henry(Gary Cooper)and British nurse Catherine Barkley(Helen Hayes).
Despite the fact that the source novel's author, Ernest Hemingway, was repulsed by this film adaptation of his famous work (primarily due to its focusing on the more romantic aspects of the story rather than the effect of war on man), the film pleased many cinema-goers then and now.
Also, it really wasn't that involving despite good to stellar work the cast: Gary Cooper as American Lt Henry, an ambulance driver in Italy during WWI, who falls instantly and madly in love with nurse Catharine Barkley (Helen Hayes) despite the insistent warnings from cynical friend Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou, the very definition of the cynic).
Based on Ernest Hemingway's semi-autobiographical 1929 novel of the same name, this seemed like the perfect film to watch after the Hemingway biopic "In Love and War" (1996) but it is not a very good one.
The novel's language was toned down as well but that was hardly surprising given that Hemingway used several words that would not be commonly heard in films until decades after his death.Gary Cooper became a better actor as he got older but he is not a great leading man in this instance.
The film also features strong performances from Adolphe Menjou as Henry's unreliable "war brother" Captain Rinaldi, Mary Phillips as Catherine's best friend and fellow nurse Helen Ferguson and Jack La Rue as an Italian priest who has difficulty comprehending the scale of death and destruction that the war has caused.
Cooper later became close friends with Hemingway and chose him to star in the film adaptation of his 1940 novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls".Overall, this is not a very good film when it comes to the romantic elements but much better when it comes to its more limited war elements..
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!).
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.