Back in the early 1930s, this film probably played a lot better than it does now. Over 70 years later, the film just seems to creak with old age--with a very, very, very melodramatic and unconvincing plot. This sort of over-done "schmaltziness" was much more accepted in its day, but now it just seemed pretty hard to take. And this is a shame, really, as there are STILL some excellent elements in the film. Underneath it all, there is the germ of an interesting romance. Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes play a young couple united by the war who fall in love. As a "pre-Code" production, the plot was much more adult than you might have seen just a few years later, as Hayes' character becomes pregnant with Cooper's baby! He is shipped back to his unit and they lose contact with each other. As a result, both suffer immensely--though having Cooper eventually become a war deserter did make it hard to really care about him. Yes, it was a stupid war (WWI cost millions of lives for pretty much nothing),but Cooper just seemed like a guy with a lack of character--especially since, as an ambulance driver, his deserting may have cost lives. So, on one hand, I felt for the young couple, and on the other, I felt they were just,....stupid and selfish.

Apart from these problems, the film also suffers from SEVERE sound issues. I tried two different videotape versions and finally a DVD and ALL of them had horrible sound--so bad, that I almost gave up trying to watch it.

American Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) is serving as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during WWI. He is taken with English nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes). His best friend Italian doctor Major Rinaldi is also taken with her. Her fiancée had died at the Sommes. Frederic and Catherine begin a romance in the midst of war.

Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes are doing their romantic best. This adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway classic is skewed more towards romanticism. As for the epic retreat, the movie tries to capture it but only as sound stage special effects and montages. Same goes for the crossing. The action adventure intensity isn't there. While the actors are superior, the adaptation lacks tension. This version takes the first crack at the book and hits a solid single.

This film tells the story of Lt Frederic Henry, an American who has enlisted as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army during the First World War. One day he and his friend Major Rinaldi date a pair of English Nurses; Fredric and Nurse Catherine Barkley get on well and quickly fall in love. He is soon returned to the action but following an injury he is hospitalised in the Milan hospital where Catherine works. Here their love deepens. When he returns to the front again they write to each other but Rinaldi ensures their letters don't get through leading to Fredric making some drastic and dangerous choices.

While this film is set in the war, and features some impressive battle scenes it is at its heart a love story. This plays out well and there is a good chemistry between Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes as Fredric and Catherine. Adolphe Menjou is solid as Rinaldi; a slightly ambiguous character who serves to bring the two protagonists together and later keep them apart. While the battle scenes may not be brutal and large scale as those in more modern films they are intense thanks to the way it focuses on Fredric and those around him. The camera work is very inventive; a highlight being the way we see Catherine from Frederic's point of view as she enters his hospital room and kisses him. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of classic cinema.