CLASSIC OR ANTIQUE? A Farewell to Arms (1932)

 

           I’m looking through my DVR queue and I notice I’ve had “A Farewell to Arms” on it for over a year.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that I had seen this movie and would not have wanted to see it again.  Sure enough, I had watched it in 1916 and had not bothered to write a review.  Perhaps I had postponed the review until I had read the book, but that is not going to happen.  I’m not a big Hemingway fan, ever since being forced to read The Old Man and the Sea in high school.  So, let’s just get this out of the way. 

                        A Farewell to Arms was the first movie adapted from an Ernest Hemingway novel.  He was paid $24,000.  The story was based on his experiences in the Italian Campaign in WWI. (To see a movie purporting to depict those experiences, you can watch “In Love and War”.)  The movie was directed by Frank Borrage (“Flight Command”) and was one of his over 100 films going back to the silent days.  It was nominated for Best Picture and Art Direction and won for Cinematography and Sound.  It was #3 at the box office in 1932.  Even though it was released pre-Hays Code, it still underwent censorship, especially in reference to a childbirth scene.  References to labor pains, gas, groaning, and hemorrhaging were cut.  In 1938 when it was re-released, an additional 12 minutes were cut because of the Code.  The movie was offered to theater owners in two versions – one with a happy ending.  Hemingway hated both as he felt the movie was overly sentimental.  He did however become close friends with Gary Cooper a few years later.  They never discussed the film.

                        Lt. Frederic Henry (Cooper) is an American ambulance driver in Italy.  He meets a British nurse named Catherine (Helen Hayes) at a hospital.  Their relationship gets off to a rocky start with her slapping him, but within five minutes their lips are locked and then he is telling her he loves her.  So much for courting.  So much for conflict, right?  But wait… Frederic’s friend Doctor Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou) has been working Fergie and is a bit put upon by these developments.  So is nurse Fergie (Mary Phillips) who is the ugly friend who hates Catherine’s choice.  She threatens to kill Frederic if he gets Catherine pregnant.  Rinaldi does his best to keep the lovers apart.  He sends Frederic off to the front where he gets wounded, but guess who his nurse ends up being?  “ guess who ends up pregnant?

                        “A Farewell to Arms” is standard romance, set in a war.  It was quite the chick flick for flappers and their beaus.  To wake those beaus up, there is a war montage towards the end as Frederic goes AWOL to get back to Catherine.  He sees wounded and refugees and it builds to a crescendo of strafing and bombing.  War is hell!  And romance in war can be sorrowful.  I hope they sold tissues at the concession stand.  This movie is definitely a tearjerker.  Unless you got the happy ending.  To know which, just watch the eyes of the patrons coming out from the earlier showing.

                        As far as fidelity to the book, I’ve already mentioned Hemingway was not thrilled.  Not surprisingly, the romance evolves more slowly and thus more naturally than in the movie.  The rushed nature of the movie’s romance would be more acceptable if running time was being saved for the war scenes.  In the novel, Frederic gets caught up in the chaotic retreat from the Battle of Capporetto.  The book is more of a war novel than the movie is a war movie.  He kills an insubordinate sergeant, is arrested, and has to escape to get back to Catherine.  They spend time together before the climactic childbirth scene.  

                        The fact that this movie was nominated for Best Picture gives you an idea of what passed for great entertainment back in the day.  Hemingway was ahead of his time in considering it overly sentimental.  The fact that censors considered it on the cutting edge of morality is so quaint.  Those restored twelve minutes would not have gotten it on Cinemax After Hours, believe me.  Without them, the movie is positively Victorian.  The romance feels rushed, especially the ludicrous first kiss scene.  There is a scheming third leg and a protective gal pal to roil the melodrama, but it basically is the story of star-crossed lovers with a war in the way.  Cooper and Hayes are fine, as was to be expected.  But the romance does not ring true and the dialogue is banal.  There is some showy cinematography, which resulted in the Oscar, but the special effects are fake looking.  I know it’s 1930’s technology, but I am reviewing it from the perspective of whether it is good viewing for today.  In that context, the answer would have to be no.  Unfortunately, although I have not seen them, the 1957 (Rock Hudson/Jennifer Jones) movie and the 1966 (George Hamilton/Vanessa Redgrave) BBC version are not held in high esteem, so more modern is not always better.

                        I suppose if you don’t want to read the book, but want to be able to say you did, this movie will do the trick.  You also could watch it with your girlfriend or wife if she likes a good old-fashioned romance that will clear her tear ducts.  Be careful, she may be crying because you’re not Gary Cooper.

GRADE  =  C-