Classic Film Friday: A Farewell to Arms

My wife has got this week's classic film, as she has some free time to watch a movie and tell about it, so enjoy...

I watched the 1932 film adapted from the Ernest Hemmingway novel. I actually vaguely remember reading this book in junior high school. But that didn't make watching the film any less new. I guess given that junior high was some 25 years ago, that's understandable.

The story starts a bit slow for me especially since I am not all that in tune with war dramas. However, once you fall in love with the characters falling in love, you'll be hooked. Frederic, an American ambulance driver in the Italian Army (Gary Cooper) meets Catherine, a nurse for the Red Cross (Helen Hayes) once evening and instantly have a liking to one another despite Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), Frederic's best bud having seen her first. Frederic and Catherine end up spending a night of intimacy together under the stars, which she reveals shortly thereafter to have been her first time.

As we get to see Frederic and Catherine's love grow and how vindictive Rinaldi can be as he tries to keep his drinking buddy, it is easy to get wrapped up in their lives. I found myself hoping he would desert the army to go and find her...and cursing that damn Rinaldi. I won't spoil the ending, just in case you haven't read or watched it...yet.

There are a few scenes in the story when an obvious length of time is passing and events are suggested by symbolic bells ringing and war scenes flashing...but I guess that is how you fit the whole novel into an hour and a half. With an almost one-night-stand, an unwed pregnancy, desertion from the army during war...this story has a lot of shocking turns for it's time. Ya gotta love Hemmingway.