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List Price: $7.99 | | Label: Delta
Salesrank: 144310
Released: October 17, 2000 |
| Our Price: $3.99 |
| Used Price: $1.83 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Black & White DVD NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
This adaptation of Hemingway’s novel features Cooper as an American soldier and his ill-fated love affair with a British nurse. The two lovers will stop at nothing to be together but Cooper’s internal struggles ultimately threaten the relationship. Hemingway’s theme of questioning the nature of war and fighting is fully recognized under Frank Borzage’s direction.
Description of A Farewell to Arms:
The 1932 version of A Farewell to Arms owes as much to the shimmering house style of Paramount Pictures as it does the novel by Ernest Hemingway. If Hemingway purists can get past the romanticizing of the book, however, this film offers its own glossy appeal. On the Italian front in World War I, an American ambulance driver (Gary Cooper) falls in love with a nurse (Helen Hayes, before she became the official First Lady of the American The-a-tah). Cooper was a Hemingway friend in real life, and later played the hero of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; his boyish simplicity is just right for director Frank Borzage's heartfelt approach. Image Entertainment's DVD release is a stunningly gorgeous improvement on the muddy prints of this film that had been circulating for years, a fitting tribute to the Oscar-winning cinematography of ace cameraman Charles Lang (this is the kind of lush black and white that can capture the glow from a cigarette as it plays across Cooper's darkened face--a breathtaking touch). The jaded battle scenes show the influence of the hit film version of All Quiet on the Western Front, especially in a gripping montage depicting Cooper's progress alone through the war zone. Hemingway would have none of it, of course; he once disdainfully wrote that "in the first picture version Lt. Henry deserted because he didn't get any mail and then the whole Italian Army went along, it seems, to keep him company." This is first and foremost a love story, however, and as such it succeeds beautifully, right through to the remarkably intense ending. --Robert Horton
A Farewell to Arms Reviews:
Movie should be called A Farewell to A Farewell to Arms 
2009-10-08 - This is all I have to say: Did the director of the movie even read the book?!!! Don't waste your time.
1 star out of 4
2009-02-01 - The Bottom Line:
This terrible adaptation of Hemingway's novel misses the point entirely (***spoiler*** it literally ends with Gary Cooper holding Helen Hayes in his arms and intoning "Peace! Peace!"), features wooden performances from both leads, and feels long even at 85 minutes; not all black and white movies are classics--this one is just plain bad.
"I don't really live at all when I'm not with you...." 
2007-10-08 -
"I'm afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it. And sometimes I see you dead in it." -- Helen Hayes
Frank Borzage had a romanticism and sensitivity to his silent work matched by none, and when sound came along he continued to put a delicate touch on films that required something more than just direction. With Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" he brought this romantic tragedy to the screen with a dark and foreboding glow. Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes portray the doomed couple battling for moments of happiness while bombs explode everywhere around them.
Cooper is Frederic, an American driving in the Italian Ambulance Core who meets and falls in love with lovely Katherine (Helen Hayes). She is a nurse and both are simply trying to outlast the reality of war, any romantic notions crushed long ago by the parade of damaged young men. Borzage uses Charles Lang's photography to frame their old-fashioned romance against images of the first war which engulfed the entire globe. Rather than a grand film about war, however, Borzage makes his point by creating a warm and intimate glow to a romance filled with sweet moments of love, yet surrounded with doom.
Through a timid kiss on a public street, a gift of a shared St. Anthony necklace to guard her sweetheart from harm, Katherine's romantically embellished description of her shabby hotel room when writing her love, and a marriage ceremony on a hospital bed where they pretend they can smell orange blossoms on the wind, Borzage creates something timeless while at the same time showing that true love once meant something. When Frederic comes back after their first time together, the viewer knows long before he gets there it is because he needs to let her know it really meant something to him.
Adolphe Menjou is Frederic's misguided party pal who can't understand and tries to interfere, then has a change of heart and helps them reunite under dangerous circumstances, but perhaps too late. For those who haven't seen it, I won't ruin the experience with too many details. The final shot of doves shot against the heavens has much the same effect as the final shot of Borzage's "Three Comrades." This old-fashioned and tender film is an early sound masterpiece anyone with a romantic heart will enjoy.
A Farewell To Seriousness 
2007-09-22 - As a fan of old Hollywood movies and stars, I went for "Farewell" because the name carries so much weight in American literature and film. Who can resist these titans of cinema? Well, perhaps those who need a well developed story line and believable script.
One must extend his or her sense of the age in which this film was made. Editing and paper cut-out effects make this seem incredibly amateurish by modern standards. Emotions are so overwrought that it could have been a silent movie.
Gary Cooper steals his best friend's girl with no remorse. Helen Hay's character is equally spineless right up to her death scene which is hammy enough to bring a smirk to George Washington's face on Mt. Rushmore. Adolphe Menjou gets his revenge by wrecking both their lives.
" A Farewell to Arms" is a paraphrase of a French saying meaning desertion. They got it right in the movie.
Having said all that - this film got an Oscar for cimematography. The bar must have been petty low back then. Perhaps when this was made in 1934 the popular sentiment was that ALL soldiers should desert.
In conclusion, I liked the movie, but I understand from whence it came. With the price of movie tickets about the same as the price of this DVD, I am happy with my purchase.
My advice is this: This is a very good, very old movie. Watch it to see Hollywood in it's Black & White glory days.
Fine Performances by Cooper and Hayes
2007-06-26 - Released just four years after Ernest Hemingway's novel was published, the screen version of A FAREWELL TO ARMS, directed by Frank Borzage, plays fast and loose with the novel's story. One big departure is that Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), the surgeon who is Henry's (Gary Cooper) friend and drinking buddy in Hemingway's work, becomes the villain here in that he intercepts Henry and Catherine's (Helen Hayes) letters. There are other changes as well. The priest blesses their marriage-- sort of-- for the 1932 censors I suppose. But then the movie is not the novel and doesn't have to be.
Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes give fine performances. It is easy to see why Mr. Cooper was a leading man of the first order, and Ms. Hayes' acting ability of course is legendary. The ending of the movie is quite operatic and worthy of Wagner. Charles Lang won an Oscar for the cinematography. The cruelty and absurdity of war works well shot in black and white.
To have been released 65 years ago, this film surprisingly is not much dated at all.
