Don't Miss the 1932 Version of Farewell to Arms

In 1932, A Farewell to Arms became the first Ernest Hemingway novel to make it to the silver screen. I read once that Hemingway disliked it as insufficiently pessimistic. Both my parents, who saw the film separately when it came out, thought it was a wonderful romance but not much of a war movie. Mom said, though, it was when she knew that Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes would both be big stars. The last time I viewed it, I found myself conceding that it is more a tragic love story than an exciting action tale. Yet, I still think it's a must-see for all World War One buffs. If nothing else, it helps in moving one's historical horizon beyond the Western Front. There WAS another war with a very different emotional atmosphere going on in Italy at the same time.

Most likely our readers are familiar with the plot, which is set on the pre- and post-Caporetto Italian Front, near the Piave River where Hemingway himself was wounded. American ambulance section chief Lt. Frederic Henry (Cooper) encounters British nurse Catherine Barkley (Hayes) when he's drunk. Naturally, the first impressions are not good. However, fate intervenes. They meet up again on a blind date and romance blossoms. It expands to the point that Catherine finds herself with child and is dispatched to distant Milan. Frederic, however, is subsequently wounded in action and finds himself cared for by Catherine at that very hospital in Milan. Complications and tragedy follow, but I'll leave it there.

Some notable attributes of the film are the Academy Award-winning cinematography, which was ground-breaking for the time (see the still above), and the well-played, heart-wrenching ending with both Cooper and Hayes at their dramatic best. Also deserving of a special mention is Adolph Menjou, who almost steals the early part of the movie as Frederic's cynical sometimes friend, sometimes manipulative supervisor Capt. Rinaldi. A Farewell to Arms is fairly easy to find. It's available for streaming (usually for a charge) on numerous streaming outlets. By the way, the 1957 remake with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones has some great on-location mountain photography, but that's its sole merit. MH