Perhaps I should state at the outset that I have not read Ernest Hemingway's third novel, the 1929 classic "A Farewell to Arms," and thus can only comment on the 1932 filmization that I recently watched on DVD. Hemingway, as the story goes, actively disliked the picture, and with its relatively brief running time of 78 minutes, it's easy to imagine that a good part of the author's original was given the Hollywood glossover. (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. Forced to leave her nursing group as a result, Catherine hides out in Switzerland to have her baby, alone, leading to the mother of all tear-jerking conclusions....
Released in December '32, shortly before the stifling Production Code came into being, "A Farewell to Arms" is, surprisingly, sexually frank. Catherine and Henry, scant minutes after being introduced in a hotel garden, are busily engaged in the ol' "horizontal tarantella," their randiness attributed to "the war" more than their own natural inclinations. Still, Henry tells his newfound galpal "I love you" immediately afterwards, and, as events subsequently demonstrate, he means it. Cooper and Hayes do have a certain chemistry here, although they make an odd-looking couple, with Cooper towering over his girl by a good head and a half. Much of the dialogue that they utter is of the florid, purple-prose variety, and Hayes seems to occasionally overact a tad. Also (and please don't think me a superficial pigdog here), lookswise, Hayes was far from the comeliest actress on the lot, although Rinaldi refers to Catherine as the prettiest nurse in the area. Given her plain-Jane decent looks, this instant lustful infatuation on Henry's part becomes a bit incredible; a sweeter-faced actress of the period, say Claudette Colbert, might have been a better casting choice. Cooper, with his shy smile and diffident delivery, is always ingratiating, however, and Adolphe manages to convince as an Italian doctor. (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. In all, a perfectly respectable film, and one that I might have appreciated a little more, had I not seen the WW1 classics "Grand Illusion" (1937) and "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)--two infinitely superior pictures--at NYC's Film Forum just a few weeks earlier. Still, those immortal classics are more antiwar films, whereas "A Farewell to Arms" is a romantic drama with a WW1 backdrop. The film concludes most ambiguously, with Henry proclaiming "Peace, peace" as doves fly high and the Great War ends. But whether he is praying for world peace, or peace and surcease from his tragic memories, or peace for the pitiful woman in his arms, is anybody's guess....
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. Forced to leave her nursing group as a result, Catherine hides out in Switzerland to have her baby, alone, leading to the mother of all tear-jerking conclusions....
Released in December '32, shortly before the stifling Production Code came into being, "A Farewell to Arms" is, surprisingly, sexually frank. Catherine and Henry, scant minutes after being introduced in a hotel garden, are busily engaged in the ol' "horizontal tarantella," their randiness attributed to "the war" more than their own natural inclinations. Still, Henry tells his newfound galpal "I love you" immediately afterwards, and, as events subsequently demonstrate, he means it. Cooper and Hayes do have a certain chemistry here, although they make an odd-looking couple, with Cooper towering over his girl by a good head and a half. Much of the dialogue that they utter is of the florid, purple-prose variety, and Hayes seems to occasionally overact a tad. Also (and please don't think me a superficial pigdog here), lookswise, Hayes was far from the comeliest actress on the lot, although Rinaldi refers to Catherine as the prettiest nurse in the area. Given her plain-Jane decent looks, this instant lustful infatuation on Henry's part becomes a bit incredible; a sweeter-faced actress of the period, say Claudette Colbert, might have been a better casting choice. Cooper, with his shy smile and diffident delivery, is always ingratiating, however, and Adolphe manages to convince as an Italian doctor. (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. In all, a perfectly respectable film, and one that I might have appreciated a little more, had I not seen the WW1 classics "Grand Illusion" (1937) and "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)--two infinitely superior pictures--at NYC's Film Forum just a few weeks earlier. Still, those immortal classics are more antiwar films, whereas "A Farewell to Arms" is a romantic drama with a WW1 backdrop. The film concludes most ambiguously, with Henry proclaiming "Peace, peace" as doves fly high and the Great War ends. But whether he is praying for world peace, or peace and surcease from his tragic memories, or peace for the pitiful woman in his arms, is anybody's guess....