A Fareweel to Arms

“A Farewell to Arms”, directed by Frank Borzage is the first, so far, of three

screen adaptations to Ernest Hemingway’s classic 1930 novel. This movie received
the Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Sound and was nominated for Best
Picture and Best Art Direction.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer,
journalist, and sportsman. He was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Many of his works are considered classics of American literature. Hemingway's
entire work has a strong autobiographical character, being dominated by strong
emotional conflicts. Starting with the youthful exuberance novels: “The Torrents
of Spring”, “The Sun Also Rises” and “A Farewell to Arms”, continuing with the
solids “Green Hills of Africa”, “Winner Takes Nothing” and “To Have and Have
Not” and culminating in the complexes “For Who Rings the Bells”, “Across the
River” and “The Old Man and the Sea”.
The film tells the love story between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley.
Frederic Henry is an American who has enlisted as an ambulance driver in the
Italian Army during the First World War. Catherine Barkley is a war nurse. The war
becomes secondary when he meets and falls in love with Catherine. They are kept
apart by Major Rinaldi, Frederic’s Italian friend, who not only loves Catherine, but
doesn’t want him to “lose his head over a women”.
This plays out well and there is a good chemistry between Gary Cooper and
Helen Hayes as Fredric and Catherine. Adolphe Menjou is solid as Rinaldi; a
slightly ambiguous character who serves to bring the two protagonists together
and later keep them apart. While the battle scenes may not be brutal and large
scale as those in more modern films they are intense thanks to the way it focuses
on Fredric and those around him.
 I like this movie, because it was a pure proof of true love, the main characters
giving up their responsabilities for love.
I'd definitely recommend this to fans of classic cinema.