A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Frank Borzage
Produced by	Edward A. Blatt Benjamin Glazer
Written by	Benjamin Glazer Oliver H.P. Garrett
Starring	Gary Cooper Helen Hayes Adolphe Menjou
Music by	Milan Roder
Cinematography	Charles Lang
Editing by	Otho Lovering George Nichols Jr.
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 8, 1932
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

A Farewell to Arms is a 1932 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Borzage, and starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. The screenplay by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Benjamin Glazer is based on the 1929 semi-autobiographical novel by Ernest Hemingway. In 1960, the film entered the public domain (in the USA) due to the claimants failure to renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.^[1]

Plot

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 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 seduces her, over her half-hearted resistance, and is surprised to discover she is a virgin.

Their 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 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.

When Frederic cannot stand it any longer, he deserts to find Catherine. Rinaldi visits him at the hotel where he is hiding, and tells him 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 letters, marked "Return to Sender". She is taken to the hospital, where her child is delivered stillborn, and she herself is in grave danger. Frederic arrives, and just as an armistice between Italy and Austria-Hungary is announced, Catherine dies, with him at her side.

Cast

• Helen Hayes as Catherine Barkley
• Gary Cooper as Lieutenant Frederic Henry
• Adolphe Menjou as Major Rinaldi
• Mary Philips as Helen Ferguson
• Jack La Rue as Priest
• Blanche Friderici as Head Nurse
• Mary Forbes as Miss Van Campen
• Gilbert Emery as British Major

Critical reception

Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes

In his review in The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall said, "There is too much sentiment and not enough strength in the pictorial conception of Ernest Hemingway's novel . . . the film account skips too quickly from one episode to another and the hardships and other experiences of Lieutenant Henry are passed over too abruptly, being suggested rather than told . . . Gary Cooper gives an earnest and splendid portrayal [and] Helen Hayes is admirable as Catherine . . . another clever characterization is contributed by Adolphe Menjou . . . it is unfortunate that these three players, serving the picture so well, do not have the opportunity to figure in more really dramatic interludes."^[2]

Dan Callahan of Slant Magazine notes, "Hemingway . . . was grandly contemptuous of Frank Borzage's version of A Farewell to Arms . . . but time has been kind to the film. It launders out the writer's . . . pessimism and replaces it with a testament to the eternal love between a couple."^[3]

Time Out London calls it "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 . . . 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."^[4]

Channel 4 describes it as "an excellent adaptation . . . the two leads are ideal and irresistible here, particularly a reliably sensitive Cooper, who milks his everyman appeal to great effect."

Awards and nominations

The film won two Academy Awards and was nominated for another two:^[5]

• Academy Award for Best Picture (nominee)^[2]
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction (nominee)
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
• Academy Award for Sound - Franklin Hansen (winner)

See also

Novels portal

• List of films in the public domain
• The House That Shadows Built (1931 promotional film by Paramount with except of film showing Eleanor Boardman, later replaced by Hayes)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: A Farewell to Arms (1932 film)

• A Farewell to Arms at the Internet Movie Database
• A Farewell to Arms is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• A Farewell to Arms at AllRovi
• A Farewell to Arms on Studio One: February 17, 1948