Subtitles:

None

Extras:

• Trailers for Nothing Sacred, A Star is Born, Pandora and the Flying Dutchman

Not only the best film version of a Hemingway novel, but also one of the most thrilling visions of the power of sexual love that even Borzage ever made. An American ambulanceman, serving in Italy in World War I, falls in love with an English nurse; he finally goes AWOL to rejoin her, only to find her carrying his child and dying of hunger and loneliness. No other director got performances like these: Cooper at his youngest and sexiest, moving from drunkenness to intoxication; moon-faced Hayes, at once a mother-figure and a lover; and Menjou as Cooper's repressed homosexual friend, jealously coming between the lovers. And no other director created images like these, using light and movement like brushstrokes, integrating naturalism and a daring expressionism in the same shot. This is romantic melodrama raised to its highest degree, fittingly set to the music of Wagner's 'Liebestod'.

It's no secret that Ernest Hemingway could be an ornery cuss when he wanted to, and he had little use for people who made their living in the film industry. So it's hardly a shock that he openly despised Frank Borzage's entertaining but bowdlerized version of his war novel, A Farewell to Arms. It is surprising, though, that he developed a longtime allegiance to the film's broad-shouldered star, Gary Cooper. Hemingway was known for discarding, or, worse yet, alienating even his closest friends. But he and Cooper became buddies a few years after A Farewell to Arms (1932) was released, and they stayed that way for nearly 20 years.

Cooper stars as Lt. Frederick Henry, a World War I officer whose world is turned upside down when he falls for a British nurse named Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes.) Henry and Catherine are made for each other, but Henry's friend, Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou) grows jealous of them, and has Helen transferred to Milan. Then, as luck would have it, Henry is wounded and ends up in the very hospital where Catherine works. Henry quickly heals, and is sent back into battle, but not before Catherine is carrying their love child. Though Catherine tries to contact Henry to tell him the news, she can't reach him due to even more treacherous maneuvers by Rinaldi.

Gary Tooze

December 8th, 2011