A Farewell to Arms

Rock Hudson wasn't bad but it was painfully obvious that Jennifer Jones was a lot older than him. It was absurd she was supposed to be English when she sounded just as American as Hudson and Elaine Stritch. The film is spectacular but too overblown for a trifling romantic story.

Obviously, a great deal of time and money was lavished on this project. Producer Selznick intended it to be a vindication of a career that peaked with "Gone With The Wind" in 1939, and then began a long, slow, almost painful decline. By the mid fifties he had become something of a "has-been" in Hollywood. The result? Pretty much a miss. The book is probably unfilmable, of course, but the screenplay still leaves much to be desired. Rock Hudson is far too shallow to make a go at the over-the-top emotionalism this story needs. The usually wonderful Jennifer Jones, for whom this project was conceived, somehow doesn't seem to exhibit the idealism and resolve the part needs, and that she demonstrated with such seemingly effortlessness in many other films. The direction is stilted and sometimes downright awkward, more the fault of producer Selznick, I would bet, who had a reputation for micro-managing his films, than famed director Charles Vidor.

Simply put, I'm never convinced, not even for a moment, that what is happening is real and not just another movie. Too bad.

David O. Selznick immediately signals his intention of making another 'Gone With the Wind' by pompously scrolling the credits in big letters across the screen. It's far too long but otherwise not too bad. Everyone complains that Jennifer Jones was too old for the part, but no one objected that in the earlier version Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper were also in their thirties.

The Gary Cooper/Helen Hayes version of A Farewell To Arms, well acted for the time it was made, seems dated now. The 1957 version of Hemingway's great romantic novel is, like The Sun Also Rises, another adaptation of one of Papa's masterpieces, pretty to look at, expensively made, and wooden in all other respects.

In this version Hudson is earnest but bland, Jones too old, De Sica in the wrong movie and Stritch, well, her acid nurse is one of the film's only bright spots.

But the real reason to see the film is the ravishing musical score by Mario Nasciembe. Talk about romantic! Talk about lush! Talk about unforgettable! Had the film been as good as it's musical score it would have been a classic; what A Farewell To Arms ultimately is though, is an overstuffed period piece and a tepid finale to the great David Selznick's career. (By the way should you want to skip the film, the soundtrack is currently available on CD.)

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