A Farewell to Arms

An Academy Awards Best Picture nominee, this is a very good film that, despite its occasional experimentation and evident striving for greatness, doesn't quite reach the mark it hopes to. Nonetheless, it's unmistakably high quality and remains very watchable, enduringly appealing, and, in places, impressive.

The big glaring shortcomings are the experimental moments - which don't work and are distracting - and the fact that Miss Hayes is, much of the time, given over-ripe, unnaturally worded and stagy sounding dialogue to speak - and so much of the time, despite that she does give a fine, clearly talented performance, she does so in stage-performer mode and with "impress them with my craft" line delivery, rather than in the much more subtle and truly naturalistic way that's right for movie acting. I'm not faulting Miss Hayes' performance, instead am opining that she gives a stage star's version of subtle movie acting, rather than a movie actor's version thereof.

For some reason, all the stagily worded dialogue was given only to Miss Hayes to speak. Other characters are given infinitely more real and believable sounding dialogue. Perhaps Paramount expressly wanted to capitalize on Miss Hayes' stature and deserved reputation as one of the greatest stage stars of her time, therefore ordered script writers to "pour it on thick" when it came to lines for her to speak.

An additional shortcoming of this film, for me, has always been that I never have found Cooper and Hayes to seem like a credible couple; his chemistry with and towards her seems 100% natural and believable, though her interactions with him always feel, to me, like she's performing, rather than it being convincingly real life-like. I don't mean to sound like I'm faulting Miss Hayes, as she was, as we know, tremendously gifted. Her performance in this movie feels, to me, like it would have been spot-on on the stage. Another issue is that Miss Hayes has always struck me as miscast in this, as she seems...

Frank Borzage presents us here with quite an effectively abridged version of the Hemmingway story of wartime romance. "Frederic" (Gary Cooper) is an American soldier who finds himself in hospital being cared for by nurse "Catherine" (the almost porcelain-like Helen Hayes). Their's is quickly a love story that has to compete with the atrocities of the Great War as he and she are both transferred and it becomes harder for them to communicate and be together. "Frederic" isn't helped by the well meaning interventions of his captain "Rinaldi" (Adolphe Menjou) who ensures that their written correspondence is unanswered - but when "Frederic" learns that a baby is due and that "Catherine" is now in Switzerland, he must rush to her side - even if that means desertion. To be honest the production isn't the best and the lighting could be doing with some extra wattage, but there is a genuine sense of chemistry between the couple and of frustration as their romance blossoms despite the prevailing difficulties. I reckon it's the best cinematic adaptation of this frequently quite torrid story, and well worth a gander,