L'Adieu au drapeau

When this version of A Farewell to Arms came out, Ernest Hemingway hated this film. They turned his novel and put too much emphasis on the romance angle. When Papa Hemingway said that he obviously did not know Hollywood well at all. If he did just knowing Frank Borzage directed this film should have told him something. Borzage did a whole slew of tender romantic stories in the Thirties like Three Comrades, The Mortal Storm, stuff like that. A Farewell to Arms is definitely in keeping with that tradition.

The one thing that Hemingway did like was the casting of Gary Cooper as the hero Fredric Henry. He and Coop became fast friends right up to when they both died in 1961. He saw in Cooper the ideal Hemingway hero and when Paramount acquired the rights to For Whom the Bells Toll, Hemingway insisted it be done with Cooper or nobody.

Cooper and Helen Hayes made a tender romantic couple in the Borzage tradition, probably more Borzage than Hemingway. But Adolph Zukor and Paramount also knew what sold movie tickets and Paramount was having a lot of financial troubles at this time. The studio nearly went under during the Depression. But Paramount's saviors turned out to be Bing Crosby, Mae West, and Cecil B. DeMille who returned to the studio he helped found.

Helen Hayes made several good films in the early thirties, this one and the one she won an Oscar for, The Sins of Madelon Claudet. But she never became a movie box office draw so she returned to the Broadway stage where she reigned as a Queen.

Adolphe Menjou replete with Italian accent plays Cooper's friend and romantic rival, Major Rinaldi. Menjou was great at playing both American and continental types. Soon he would sign a long term contract with MGM and gain his greatest roles during the sound era.

Hemingway purists might shun A Farewell to Arms, but those who love their screen romances, soggier the better will rave about this film.

This story about a doomed love affair during the Italian campaign of WWI results to be the original and the best film version of Ernest Hemingway's novel. It deals with an American soldier, Gary Cooper, and a good English nurse, Helen Hayes, both of whom fall in love on the Italian front during WWI. He is an ambulance driver while braverly risking his life in the line of duty he is wounded and ends up in the hospital where he falls for the attending nurse who is caring him. In the midst of war the intimate pair of lovers fight to stay together and to survive the massacres around them. At the end Austria capitules and armistice is declared. Let's love tonight she said, there may be no tomorrow. Every woman who has loved will understand.

Sensitive and romantic story about a deep and thunderous love story set in the horrors of the WWI when were developing the bloody battles of Marne and Piave. However, the novelist Hemingway disavowed the ambiguous final, but the public all around the world loved the movie. Both protagonists, Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes give awesome acting in one of the great love stories of all time. They are finely accompanied by a nice support cast at the time, such as : Adolphe Menjou, Jack La Rue, Mary Philips, Mary Forbes, among others.

The motion picture shot in Paramount studios was well directed by Frank Borzage and it won Oscars 1933 to Cinematography : Charles Lang Jr and Sound. Filmmaker Frank Borzage was a notorious actor and director who made a lot of decent films from Silent cinema to Sound one , such as : Street angel, Flight command, Big city , Bad fire, The mortal storm, Billy the Kid, The big fisherman, being his greatest hit : The 7th Heaven. Rating 7/10 . Better than average. Well worth watching. The picture will appeal to Gary Cooper fans.

Other version about this famous story are as follows : A farewell to arms 1957 by Charles Vidor and John Huston with Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio de Sica, Oscar Homolka. A farewell to arms 1966 by Tucker with Vanessa Redgrave and George Hamilton. In love and war 1996 by Richard Attenborough with Chris O'Donnell, Sandra Bullock , Mackenzie Astin.

Watch for some James Dean look-alike glances in this black and white movie. It also plays a lot like "The English Patient", but not as boring. The continual bombings and chaos of the fighting was very realistic, but it didn't move the plot along as well as it might have.

Helen Hayes as the love interest does a delightful job, but it's hard not to judge this picture by the technical improvements of today's cinematographers. I too have either outgrown Hemingway, or a lot of his dialogue was cut. I suggest you go back and give the book a read, and decide for yourself. I have promised to return and see the movie again, afterwards. Gary Cooper was a really great-looking, and good acting guy.....and I've never appreciated him before so much. He had a lot of stage business that made him appear quite natural.

Adolph Menjou as the fun-loving captain did an admirable job, as well.

Based on the Ernest Hemingway novel and starring Gary Cooper, this has the potential to be a classic. The setting and sentiment are reasonably original, especially for their time, and the movie is reasonably gritty.

Yet, it doesn't feel like a classic. The romance seems trite and contrived. Overly schmaltzy and sometimes just plain dull.

The acting is patchy. Gary Cooper is okay, but Helen Hayes' performance is quite flat. Most entertaining performance comes from Adolphe Menjou as Rinaldi.

It was probably quite good in its time, and might well be regarded as one of the first anti-war movies, but it now feels quite dated.

A Farewell to Arms features the expected good performances from Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Adolphe Menjou. For its time, it also features impressive sets. The dialogue also does justice to its source material, the Hemingway novel of the same name. This movie must've been appreciated much more at the time of its release, given the imminence of war sentiment and Hitler's rising power in Germany. All in all, a very good, though not great film, 7/10.