A Farewell to Arms - 1932

Based on the Ernest Hemingway novel, this 1932 movie was on my list for a while. I didn't know much about it except that it dealt with a story during a war.

During WWI, an American, Frederic, is serving in the Italian army as an ambulance advisor. He meets a beautiful nurse, Catherine, and they fall in love. They try to keep in touch, but Frederic's friend doesn't want to see him "lose his head over a woman" and intercepts their letters. When Catherine finds out she's pregnant, she moved to Switzerland, so now Frederic has no idea where she is. When he finally tracks her down, she's on her deathbed, but hey! The war is over!

Ok, so this one wasn't what I expected. Yes, I didn't know what it was about when I pressed play, but what I watched confused me. I think one of the problems was there wasn't much time for the main characters to develop their relationship. They just meet and are instantly deeply in love. It was weird.

And the end. I don't care if it was true to the book or not. I had to watch Catherine die for like five minutes. It was overly dramatic and drawn out. I felt worse for Frederic at that moment. He worked so hard to get back to Milan and find Catherine. Frederic never got to find out what his friend did, so I'm not sure what he would've done in response.

Anyway, this one didn't appeal to me. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if it stayed true or not. The acting on Gary Cooper's side was good, and I feel like he did a great job. I know a lot of couples rushed things during war, but spending 20 minutes together doesn't seem to be enough time to "fall desperately in love." Maybe that's just me. The end was also disappointing.