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28 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Simply sublime., 20 June 1999

Author: David Atfield (bits@alphalink.com.au) from Canberra, Australia

This is a magnificent picture, photographed sublimely by Charles Lang (who deservedly won an Oscar). Cooper and Hayes are brilliant as the World War One lovers - and the ending will bring you to tears. How wonderful to see Coop so vulnerable and so in love, and Hayes just shines from the screen like a diamond.

This film is very under-rated. The camerawork is ground-breaking and original - look for the shot when Hayes kisses Cooper as he is wheeled into his hospital room. Amazing. I really love this film.

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25 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
All's Fair in Love and War, 4 June 2004
Author: lugonian from Kissimmee, Florida

A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Paramount, 1932), directed by Frank Borzage, is the first, so far, of three screen adaptations to Ernest Hemingway's classic 1930 novel. It is a tender love story set against the background of the Great War (World War I) involving two young people, Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper), an American lieutenant and ambulance driver in the Italian unit, and Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), a war nurse, who meet first in the hospital, then again during an air raid (where she refers to him as a lunatic) and finally at a social function. Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), Frederic's Italian friend, happens to be in love with Catherine, but after Rinaldi leaves Helen alone to get them both a drink, Fredric enters the scene, converses with her and gives her a kiss, and getting a slap across the face for his trouble. At that moment, however, Catherine has a change of heart and immediately becomes attracted to the young soldier and forgetting about Rinaldi, who witnesses his defeat. As time passes, Catherine and Frederic become an inseparable pair, and after he marches off to war, Catherine communicates with him by mail. Unknown to Catherine, her letters, which go through Rinaldi via postal inspection, has stamped "return to sender" on all 20 envelopes claiming he doesn't want his friend to "lose his head over a woman," but in reality is jealous over their relationship. Unaware of their earlier secret marriage ceremony performed at the hospital following Frederic's injury, and of her pregnancy, by which she has gone to Switzerland to have the baby, it is Rinaldi who eventually makes amends by disclosing Catherine's whereabouts to Frederic after going AWOL to try and find her.

The supporting casts consists of Mary Phillips as Helen Ferguson, a nurse and Catherine closest friend who objects to her continued romance with the young American; Jack LaRue, noted for playing villains and gangsters during this period of his career, as a soft-spoken Italian priest; Blanche Frederici as the stern head nurse; Mary Forbes as Miss Van Campen; and Henry Armetta, Paul Porcasi, Herman Bing and Gilbert Emery in smaller roles, among others. Adolphe Menjou offers fine and memorable support. He is quite convincing, right down to his spoken Italian dialect.

A highly popular war drama in its day, which concentrates more on the relationship between a lieutenant and a nurse than soldiers on the battlefield, A FAREWELL TO ARMS earned itself an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1932-33, losing to CAVALCADE (Fox, 1933). It was also honored for best sound recording, art direction and photography, but none for its acting. Director Frank Borzage brings out the tenderness and simplicity of the young couple in love as he had done on numerous occasions during his several years at the Fox Film studios, particularly the initial three silent dramas that established the popular team of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell (SEVENTH HEAVEN, 1927; STREET ANGEL, 1928; and LUCKY STAR, 1929). In fact, had Hemingway sold his novel to the producers at Fox, A FAREWELL TO ARMS would definitely have been awarded to the popular team of Gaynor and Farrell under Borzage's direction. Yet similarities between Gaynor and Farrell and Hayes and Cooper go by the way of their sizes. Both Gaynor and Hayes were short in appearance while Cooper and Farrell stood very tall, especially opposite their shorter leading ladies. But because of the sensitivity and care as enacted by the main characters, it goes without saying that Hayes and Cooper appear to be far better suited as Hemingway characters than Gaynor and Farrell would have been had they been offered this assignment. At first glance, Gary Cooper gives the impression of being an odd choice in playing Fredric Henry, considering solid actors as Fredric March or Clark Gable (on loan from MGM) might have made a go of this, but in the finished product, the film conveys Cooper to be properly cast after all, ranking this as one of his most finer performances. He was especially effective during the hospital scene which finds his face with tears flowing down his cheeks with spoken shakiness in his voice after learning that Catherine, in the maternity ward, might not survive. After watching the conclusion of A FAREWELL TO ARMS which has Frederic carrying Catherine towards the open window, one cannot help noticing the similarities between this and that similar scene used for Samuel Goldwyn's literary screen carnation to WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939) featuring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. Great scenes are not made, they're remade.

The pace to the story is occasionally slow, with the early portions of the story lacking musical underscoring, but does pick up during its second half. As with many stories about couples meeting, starting out not liking one another, and thus, becoming an inseparable pair, A FAREWELL TO ARMS turns out to be one of the best of its kind. Other than the character study and battle scenes, the movie offers several bonuses, especially with some of its effective camera techniques. One such scene that occurs in the hospital where the injured Frederic Henry is being wheeled in the hospital from a platform table where the camera assumes the place of the character, taking focus as to what he is witnessing, followed by doctors and nurses looking down and talking directly into the camera with the Frederic answering the questions, and concluding with an extreme close up of Catherine's face with only her right eye taking full focus into the camera as she kisses and talks to her wounded soldier. The camera taking the place of the character technique would be used memorably more than a decade later with two notable "film noir" mysteries, LADY IN THE LAKE (MGM, 1946) and DARK PASSAGE (WB, 1947). While these films have used this method to an extent to most of the story, A FAREWELL TO ARMS presents this technique briefly but effectively.

Remade twice during the 1950s, first as FORCE OF ARMS (Warner Brothers, 1950) starring William Holden and Nancy Olson, and later under its original title in 1957 for 20th Century-Fox starring Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson, the third, being the better known of the earlier two, might have surpassed the original had it not been so awkward, overlong (two and-a-half hours) and overblown. The original 1932 production, eliminating many key elements from the novel, is better acted and not long enough to cause any viewer lose interest. Because of the remakes in the 1950s, the 1932 original was taken out of circulation, with availability for viewing the original very hard to obtain, and chances of it never to be seen or heard about again. Fortunately, prints did survive, leaving chances of A FAREWELL TO ARMS to surface again. Finally, as early as 1981, the initial version to A FAREWELL TO ARMS made its long awaited rebirth, on public television, initially as part of its weekly SPROCKETS series. Ever since then, television and later public domain video prints presented the original Hemingway drama 10 minutes shorter to its original 90 minutes of screen time, along with occasional poor picture quality, and even worse, the elimination of the original opening and closing credits taken from reissue prints with newer opening title cards and the substitution of the Paramount logo with that of a 1950s Warner Brothers shield, and the elimination of the closing casting credits. When A FAREWELL TO ARMS premiered on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, February 15, 2004, as part of the cable channel's annual 31 days of Oscar, it became another long-awaited event. Aside from having it shown in its original 90 minute presentation, the Paramount logo that opens and closes the movie has been restored along with the closing cast list, as originally played in theaters back in 1932.

Has A FAREWELL TO ARMS stood the test of time? Chances are with its newly restored and clearer picture quality presentation currently available on TCM, it may stir up much more interest than the latter remakes. It also gives an insite look to the early film career of famous stage actress Helen Hayes (1900-1993) at her peak, riding high on her success in her Academy Award winning performance of THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET (MGM, 1931), many years before achieving popularity to a new and younger generation of movie goers in the 1970s in old lady character parts, beginning with AIRPORT (1970), a performance that outshined all others in this all-star disaster flick, and the television series THE SNOOP SISTERS. But as it stands, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, a poignant love story, which may not stir up as many tears and sobs as it once did way back when, it is, however, a worthy novel to screen offering, ranking this the first, and best, of two remakes combined.

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18 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
What Did Papa Expect?, 29 August 2006

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

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.

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18 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
A Memorable Film In Need of Restoration, 28 March 2005

Author: gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi

The 1932 film version of Ernest Hemmingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS will never challenge the likes of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT--but while it fails to capture the horrors of World War I it is remarkably effective at capturing the novel's sparse and unyielding prose. A good deal of the credit goes to writers Garrett and Glaizer and director Borzage--but the real interest here is not so much in the cinematic interpretation of the Hemmingway novel as it is in the cast, which is remarkable.

Actress Helen Hayes was already among the leading lights of the New York stage when she was lured to Hollywood for a handful of films in the early 1930s--and it is easy to see what all the fuss was about. Plaintive beauty aside, unlike most stage and screen actors of the era she is completely unaffected in her performance and proves more than powerful enough to overcome the more melodramatic moments of the script. She is costarred with Gary Cooper in one of his earliest leading roles, and while the pairing is unexpected, it is also unexpectedly good: they have tremendous screen chemistry, and in spite of the film's dated approach they easily draw you into this story of an ill-fated wartime romance between a nurse and an ambulance driver.

The film is also well supplied with a solid supporting cast that includes Adolphe Menjou, Jack La Rue, and Mary Philips, and while clearly filmed on a slim budget--something most obvious in the battlefront sequences--the camera work is remarkably good. Unfortunately, all this counts for nothing unless you can find a print of the film that you can stand to watch. It is sad but true: the 1932 A FAREWELL TO ARMS seems to have fallen into public domain, and the result is a host of DVD and VHS releases that range from the merely adequate to the incredibly dire.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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15 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Impressionism in the Cinema, 24 January 2006

Author: James Hitchcock from Tunbridge Wells, England

The works of Ernest Hemingway have not always translated well to the cinema. The Gary Cooper/Ingrid Bergman "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and David O. Selznick's version of "A Farewell to Arms", although attractively photographed, are two of the dullest and most slow-moving films ever committed to celluloid. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is slightly better, but still by no means as good as it should be, given its stellar cast. Howard Hawks's version of "To Have and Have Not" is a good film, but that is probably because its plot has very little to do with that of the novel on which it is supposedly based.

The 1932 version of "A Farewell to Arms" was the first time a film had been based on one of Hemingway's works, and there is an obvious difference between it and the 1957 remake; it is only slightly more than half the length, at 80 minutes as opposed to 152. Over the quarter-century between the dates of the two films there had been a change in the way Hemingway was seen. In 1932 he was still an up-and-coming young author; by 1957, although he was still alive and only in his late fifties, he had achieved the status of Great American Novelist, and the film that was made in that year suffers from an over-reverential attitude to his work, treating it like a solemn classical text that needed an equally solemn cinematic treatment to do it justice.

The film tells the story of the romance between Frederick, an American volunteer serving with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver, and Catherine, a nurse with the British Red Cross. Frederick deserts and crosses the border into neutral Switzerland, to be with Catherine, whom he has secretly married and who is pregnant.

It has been pointed out that the moral of the film is precisely the opposite of that of "Casablanca". In that film Rick and Ilsa give up their chance of happiness together because "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world". What matters is the war, and the Allied struggle for victory. In "A Farewell to Arms", however, the moral is that the personal happiness of Frederick and Catherine matters more than the great historical events from which they are escaping. This reversal in emphasis between the two films probably reflects a reversal in public attitudes which took place in the intervening decade between 1932 and 1942. In 1932, a year before Hitler came to power, there was a sense of disillusionment with war, even in those countries which had finished on the winning side in 1914-18; the First World War was widely seen as senseless slaughter. Ten years later, the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War had changed attitudes so that it was once again fashionable to talk about a "just war" against evil. (By 1957, during the Cold War, the pendulum had partially swung back in the opposite direction; Selznick's film might have been a flop, but there were some very good anti-war films from that period, such as Kubrick's "Paths of Glory").

Seen from a modern perspective, the film looks and sounds very dated. The sound quality is poor and the action looks jerky. These problems were, of course, common to most films from the early thirties, the very dawn of the sound picture era. (It is remarkable how quickly those problems were overcome, when one compares the likes of "A Farewell to Arms" with, say, "Gone with the Wind" from only seven years later). In some respects, however, the director Frank Borzage was able to turn the technical limitations of the period to his advantage. Large-scale realistic battle sequences would not have been possible at this time, but Borzage nevertheless wanted to give some idea of the horror of war in order to show what Frederick is fleeing from. In order to do this he resorts to a wordless montage sequence composed of brief shots of the battle, backed by some highly dramatic music. The result is a sort of cinematic equivalent of Impressionism, serving to give as vivid an impression of warfare as a more detailed picture ever could. (This sequence was probably the reason the film won the Oscar for "Best Cinematography").

The film is better acted than the 1957 remake. Helen Hayes was less glamorous than Jennifer Jones, and has an even less convincing British accent, but makes a much livelier and more convincing Catherine. Gary Cooper's Frederick is similarly far more animated than Rock Hudson's stony-faced interpretation of the role, and he receives good support from Adolphe Menjou as Frederick's comrade Major Rinaldi. The action is better paced and the film, even if it looks primitive by today's standards, nevertheless has a vigour lacking from many more polished films from more recent times. 7/10

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
A gesture...a look...the inflection in a voice..., 16 February 2003

Author: marxi from Louisville, Kentucky

A gesture...a look...the inflection in a voice. An ambulance going up a mountain... a dead soldier...rain pouring down. "Farewell to Arms" evokes emotions without being overly dramatic. It is based based on the Ernest Hemingway novel with the same title. It sets the scene for the story with images from the camera. Make no mistake, this is a love story, not a war movie. It is a love story set in the midst of World War I and it takes place in Italy and Switzerland. Not only do the images set the scene for this film but the actors make a love story unfold in the midst of the terrible taking place. Helen Hayes is a stand out in her role as the nurse from Great Britain. Gary Cooper has never been more handsome and charming as an American Ambulance driver. Their romance and struggle to be together are poignant and convincing. Gary Cooper has a marvelous friendship with a doctor played by Adolphe Menjou and some touching scenes with a priest portrayed by Jack Larue. Time has been kind to this movie which goes beyond era and place and develops its characters and story well enough so that they transcend the 1932 style of making films and the WWI setting to shine in a classic movie for any age. This movie was directed by Frank Bozarge and it won a well deserved Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
The Great War and the devotion of two people, 3 May 2007

Author: Petri Pelkonen (petri_pelkonen@hotmail.com) from Finland

There's World War I going and Lieutenant Frederick Henry is fighting for his life.The war becomes secondary when he meets and falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley.Having big emotions for another person during the war is dangerous since there's the chance of losing that person.They're both afraid.He may not admit that, but they're both afraid.Frank Borzage's A Farewell to Arms (1932) is based on Ernest Hemingway's novel.It won two Academy Awards from best cinematography (Charles Lang) and best sound, recording (Franklin Hansen).It would have deserved awards for acting, as well.The charismatic Gary Cooper and the admirable Helen Hayes do a fantastic job as the leading couple.Then there's also the great Adolphe Menjou as Major Rinaldi.The dialogue is brilliant.Lots of lovely words are spoken about love.I know there are many people who would say a movie from 75 years back is too old for them.I'd say that's their lost.A Farewell to Arms offers great feelings from the first meeting till the tragic ending.

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8 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Gary Cooper...what a dish!!!, 22 July 2001
Author: Alice Copeland Brown (alicecbrown@yahoo.com) from Boston

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.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Classic Tragic Love Story, 24 September 2007

Author: rickhavoc1 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Be warned! The ending of this movie is enough to make a grown man CRY! At least if he's not as wooden as one of the other people who posted a comment here claims Gary Cooper is. That's just a crock of BULLS%#&. I sometimes think of this as the ultimate "f%#&-your-buddy" movie. But not all love stories have happy endings. Coop did a bang-up job portraying Lt. Frederick Henry, an American who volunteers with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver, who falls in love with a British nurse named Catherine Barkley, (Helen Hayes, who also was wonderful). Lt. Henry's "friend", Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), is a surgeon who's also attracted to Nurse Barkley. He interferes with the romance, justifying it to himself by saying it's just a wartime fling. There's also a drumhead "kangaroo court" scene that's a classic of injustice. The romantic scenes are tender and sweet, with Coop and Hayes having great screen chemistry together. I just can't watch it too often, as my life is unhappy enough without watching movies with sad endings.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Admirable Hemingway Adaptation, 5 February 2007

Author: Jem Odewahn from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This film is certainly not a great of the cinema, yet it is a fine, rewarding Hemingway adaptation that will stay in the mind for some time.

For me, Cooper seemed to suggest Hemingway's protagonists better than any other actor. He was still on his way to stardom when cast in this film, and is an interesting choice to play Frederic, yet not a bad choice at all. Cooper's quiet, contained style of acting equips the film well and his delivery of ironic lines such as('I was shot while eating spaghetti') is subtle and measured. He interacts well with Helen Hayes as Catherine Barkley, a nurse whom ambulance driver Cooper enjoys a passionate romance with in the midst of World War One. Menjou creates a memorable Rinaldi.

This is a neatly directed and surprisingly tidy film, one that holds up remarkably well for modern audiences. It contains some very memorable images, not least the stunning shot of hundreds of sad, white crosses across the battleground landscape.

It is interesting to note this was made Pre-Code, so Cooper and Hayes do get some romantic scenes that probably would not have made it past the censors in just a couple of years time (one of their kisses is surprisingly erotic in nature). Also notable is that touching final scene between Cooper and Hayes, with Catherine in Frederic's arms- it would be used again, more famously, in Wuthering Heights (1939), with another dying 'Cathy' being carried to the window by her love.

A definitive 'Farewell to Arms' has not yet been made, however this comes the closest when compared to the overblown Selznick adaptation starring Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson.

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