A Farewell to Arms and a Saturday night

6/29/13 A Farewell to Arms, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, 1932

I have not hidden my lack of understanding regarding the Gary Cooper mystique, and after watching A Farewell to Arms, I still don't get it. Although to be fair, once you add Hemingway into the equation, the odds go way down for me to like anything. Maybe my problem is more with Hemingway, but I had my chance with critiquing Papa in high school, so on to the next thing. A Farewell to Arms is set in Italy, and Gary Cooper plays Frederic Henry, and ambulance drive and Helen Hayes as Nurse Catherine Barkley. Frederic and Catherine fall in love after just one evening together. Adolphe Menjou is Major Rinaldi, Frederic's well-meaning, but clueless and interfering friend, who is a doctor at the hospital where Catherine works. Catherine and Frederic are separated by Rinaldi, who does not approve of their relationship, not knowing that Catherine is pregnant. I tried to watch the movie with an open mind, but it was so hard, Catherine starts off as a seemingly independent-minded woman, but she loses that when she is smitten by Frederic's charms, she then becomes needy and lacking common-sense. The only person who seems to have any brains is Ferguson, a fellow nurse, who knows exactly what is going to happen to Catherine at the hands of Frederic. Frederic, to his credit, tries to find Catherine and goes to great lengths, rowing in the rain and dark and deserting his ambulance company, but he just seems clueless. One of the huge problems with this film may be connected to the transfer to DVD, but the sound was horrible (ironic, in that it won an Oscar for Best Sound) and I had to turn the volume on the television to 48 (normal for my bat-like hearing is 20-23), it was like watching tv with my mom. There were no subtitles, so I missed small bits of dialog. The movie also won for Best Cinematography, and there was some some nice use of shadow and light, for what that's worth. The movie was only 87 minutes long, but it seemed like days. It was a milestone though - only 725 movies left on the Academy list through 2012. Small victories.