Better Late Then Never

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This movie could have gone in a number of different directions because of Hemingway's writing style. I read the book about a week before watching the movie (niether by choice) so I had a pretty good idea of where and how each was different. If you've read the novel, you can understand how the director and actors would have had a hard time getting the characters across since Hemingway provides practically no emotion or description to his dialogue. He wanted to keep the meaning behind his characters words ambiguous to make it interesting. However, that leaves a few too many options when you're an actor and have to choose one emotion to convey. I didn't like how it came off, but I'll talk about that more later. The story doesn't transition from the book to the movie well. It's not a bad subject matter, but the story is famous for its symbolism rather more than anything else, and symbolism expressed with words is extremely hard to translate into images.Our two characters are a little hard to grasp since they were written in a way that reflected to aimlessness of the 1920's. Catherine in particular has a very romanticized perception of the war and her relationship with Frederic Henry. Frederic has an inverse view of things in which he carries a constant air of what is almost construable as apathy. Rock Hudson's sappier portrayal of him makes him seem like less of an unfeeling Bond-type and more of a star-crossed lover. There are very few other characters of significance. Rinaldi is probably the most prominent minor character, followed by the Milan nurses (Fergusson, and Van Campen), and the army priest. These parts feature the better acting performances of the movie. The scene where the priest remains in the burning hospital (which by the way was not in the book) was, in my opinion, the best scene of the movie. I don't know that Vittorio de Sica's portrayal of Rinaldi was Oscar worthy, but it was the most worthy of a nomination out of all the aspects of the film.The story ends up being driven by a number of things. Among them are Frederic and Catherine's relationship, Frederic recovering from his injury, the general tide of the war, the impending birth of Frederic and Catherine's child, and Frederic's desire to seek solace from the war after deserting. The story as a whole just sort of exists. It doesn't feel terribly alive, but it's functional and doesn't have any logic issues or inconsistencies.The acting from the lead roles felt pretty weak. They must be forgiven to an extent by Hemingway's ambiguous dialogue, but they certainly didn't give the best possible portrayals. When I was reading Catherine's rambling sentences in the book, I thought there might be some kind of coherence to it that would make it sound natural and hoped that an actress saying those same lines would provide that. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Jennifer Jones portrayal didn't have any more coherence than the static text and felt almost pathetically unrealistic. This even extended to her expressions like in the scene where Catherine is looking for Frederic among the advancing Italian force and she wears over exaggerated smiles and frowns. Rock Hudson's performance didn't really work for me because he seemed like he was trying to be too emotional while playing a character that has a hardened personality. Besides that, his emotions seemed kind of inconsistent and I didn't really buy that the character would have felt the way Hudson portrayed him to be. The supporting roles were all acted pretty well, though I don't think the talent was "wasted" on those parts since the supporting actors wouldn't have fit the lead roles.The overall feel of the movie felt a bit too romantic and not quite dark enough. Now, since that statement is coming from an action fan, it will sound biased. However, Earnest Hemingway felt much the same way upon the film's release, and was disappointed that it didn't portray the horrors that he saw as an ambulance driver in WWI. I wouldn't be surprised if major he wrote the story was a means to warn people to avoid war at all costs since it was so awful for him. If you've read and enjoyed the book, I guess it isn't a bad idea to watch this, but be warned that the tone changes drastically from book to movie. This is a much better pick as a romance movie than a war movie, though I doubt this will be at the top of your watchlist since it's kind of old. It stays pretty close to the book, which I know a lot of people can very particular about. To all prospective viewers, I'll say that it will likely come off as cheesy even if you love old movies or Earnest Hemingway's books. Overall Rating: 3.8/10.

I really wanted to like A Farewell to Arms. But despite for love for Ernest Hemingway and for Rock Hudson, A Farewell to Arms just didn't work for me. Granted it does look amazing, with ravishing use of CinemaScope and the scenery and costumes are gorgeous as you can see in the first hour. The direction is fine, and the music is beautiful and cleverly composed. However, in the pace the film was very pedestrian, but the pace wasn't the only dull thing about it. I am especially talking about the story, which was overall uninteresting and wasn't affecting, and the script, which is really stilted in a lot of scenes. The ending also felt abrupt. The acting is not good, considering how talented the actors are. I love Rock Hudson, and he visibly tries hard and looks really handsome here but he seems very out of his depth. Jennifer Jones is miscast, and her performance is a very uneven mix of overacting and underacting, also she seems very detached from her character and Hudson as well. As for Vittoria di Sica, he overdoes it so wildly you feel as though he accidentally walked onto the wrong set. All in all, despite the talented cast and director and the beautiful visuals and score, the film was dull. 3/10 Bethany Cox

David Selznick loved Jennifer Jones and per John Huston in his book "put everything on the line for his adored Jennifer" I met Douglas Fairbanks Jr years ago at a party when he was in New York and Fairbanks remarked that of major producers he knew, David Selznick stood out because of Mr. Selznick's love of great literature. David Selznick's brilliant productions of Gone With The Wind, Rebecca, David Copperfield, et al reflect Selznick's great love of great novels. (David Selznick wanted to but could not get financing for War and Peace starring of course Ms.Jones) One wonders why David Selznick insisted on remaking A Farewell to Arms but push ahead he did. David Selznick made a releasing deal thru 20th (Likely because of Jennifer Jones' attachment and successes at 20th Century Fox -Song of Bernadette, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, et al) and hired John Huston to direct again possibly because of Jennifer's past history with John Huston (Beat The Devil, We Were Strangers). David Selznick micro managed his productions and fired John Huston whom he felt was titling the picture towards a war film versus a highly romantic film, i.e. favoring Rock Hudson over Jennifer Jones. Charles Vidor replaced Huston and also had clashes with David Selznick. In the mid 50's a gigantic production shot on location in Italy had to be a logistical challenge: Selznick also fired Arthur Fellows as line producer. Some of A Farewell To Arms scenes are brilliantly photographed and large in scope as is the trademark of a Selznick International picture.Jennifer Jones was a beautiful movie star. I would recommend a review of Ms. Jones career, as Ms. Jones is sadly forgotten but was a huge box office star and acclaimed screen actress of her day: Madame Bovary, Good Morning Miss Dove, Duel In The Sun, Ruby Gentry et al Some carp over Jennifer Jones' age in this film but Jennifer Jones looks fine in this picture (but ironically would look even much better years later in a fine and underrated film 20th's Tender Is The Night). My quibble with this film is the dialogue between Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson which seems so stilted and phony. Has anyone counted the number of times the word "darling" is used?Rock Hudson, then a gigantic box office star after George Stevens great film Giant and his run at Universal with hits such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, etc got first billing over the veteran Oscar Winning Jennifer Jones. Elaine Stritch is wonderfully sassy in a small but pivotal supporting role. We are likely never to see the likes of David Selznick again, a pioneer in film. Of all David Selznick's movies I liked Gone With The Wind best but also the splendid WWII Film Since You Went Away starring Ms. Jones and a superb Claudette Colbert I wish Selznick had done an original film like Since You Went Away rather than a remake of A Farewell To Arms. Mr. Hudson adored by his female co-stars such as Doris Day, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Jane Wyman, et al never really had much to say about working with Jennifer Jones. Ms Jones until her death never commented much about anything ever about her career, her Leading Men, or about her stormy private life. A book on the back story filming of this movie would prove to be interesting. Reading Memo From David O Selznick and David Thomson's Showman would help understand David Selznick's obsession with Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms and Ms. Jones in particular. This was the final film personally produced by David O Selznick.

A lot of people are being terribly unfair to this production of A Farewell To Arms. Not that it's a great film, it misses that by a good distance, but that even films that are the best adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's work fall far short for Hemingway purists. And David O. Selznick was far from a Hemingway purist.No Selznick when it came to the career of his wife Jennifer Jones lost all kinds of sense of balance. Another reviewer was quite right, Jean Simmons, Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor all would have made acceptable Catherine Barkleys.One thing also to remember that we're not even starting out with pure Hemingway to begin with. Both this version and the 1932 version that starred Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes are not just based on the novel, they are based on a play that was adapted from the novel by Laurence Stallings who wrote What Price Glory. The play ran for 30 performances in 1930 and starred Glenn Anders and Elissa Landi on Broadway. I suspect the Depression had a lot to do with the closing as it did many shows that year.Originally John Huston was slated to direct and he had directed Jones in both We Were Strangers and Beat The Devil with little or no interference from Selznick. But Selznick fired Huston and replaced him with Charles Vidor because allegedly too much attention was paid to Rock Hudson and not enough to Jennifer.That's ironic as all get out because the novel itself is as all Hemingway works is male chauvinistic in the extreme. If he wanted to showcase Jennifer, any Hemingway just ain't the vehicle. He should have used one of the Bronte sisters.Since the novel is male oriented Rock Hudson makes a fine Fredric Henry, the idealistic man who volunteers on the Italian front as an ambulance driver to experience war so he can write about it when it's over. On that Italian front it didn't look like it was ever going to be over. That's another problem with this work, how do you sell it to the movie going public, as a romance or an anti-war tract? If you're Adolph Zukor for Paramount or David O. Selznick probably romance is the aspect that does sell. The third major character in the film is that of the Italian army doctor Major Rinaldi played here by Vittorio DeSica. This version is more faithful to the book and presents Rinaldi as a three dimensional character.In the 1932 version Adolphe Menjou was Rinaldi and Menjou did fine with the part as your typical suave continental type. Here Rinaldi's outspokenness about the futility of the Italian campaign leads to tragedy. It also led to an Oscar nomination for Vittorio DeSica as Best Supporting Actor. It was the only recognition A Farewell To Arms got from the Academy and DeSica lost to Red Buttons for Sayonara.Whether Huston or Vidor did them, the battle scenes and the scenes of retreat are shattering and moving. Given the unique problems of Hemingway and Selznick, we're lucky the film came out as good as it did.