 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| I have to talk about a movie I hated to get to one I loved. Spoilers for both! by Brody Wilder 04/23/2020, 6:25pm PDT | ||||
 |
 |
|||
| A Farewell to Arms (1932) is an adaptation of the Hemingway novel of the same name. It stars Gary Cooper as an American driving ambulances for the Italian army during World War I, and Helen Hayes as the nurse he falls in love with. You can tell it's a chick flick because Hayes gets to comport herself with dignity and restraint, while Cooper is forced to force himself on her. Literally - she says no and slaps his face like a good girl, so he holds her down and takes her virginity. (Modern audiences would be tempted to call this rape, and technically they'd be correct, but modern audiences need to understand two things: 1, what it was like to be a 32-year-old spinster in those days, and 2, just how fucking boyishly handsome Gary Cooper was back then.) From that point on they're commonlaw married, and the rest of the film is about the struggle of these two lovers to be together while a stupid war neither of them cares about tries to pull them apart. It ends with Hayes dying the most noble way a woman can, in childbirth, leaving Cooper broken and bawling like a little baby. It wasn't even 90 minutes long but it seemed to go on forever and I hated it.
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) is another Hemingway adaptation, again starring Gary Cooper, but this one's a guy movie all the way. It takes place during the Spanish Civil War, and romance comes in a distant second place to stopping the fascists before they conquer the world. Specifically, by blowing up a bridge of vital strategic importance. (You might remember the plot of blowing up a bridge from roughly 50% of old commando movies, and that's because it's the most awesome mission a handful of men can reasonably expect to undertake - it's what finally got William Holden into the whole fighting thing in The Bridge on the River Kwai, and it's what Frederic Forrest naturally assumed they were going upriver to do in Apocalypse Now. The remainder of old commando movies were either about capturing a bridge intact or blowing up a dam, which is basically a super bridge.) There's still a romance for the ages, but this time middle-aged and granite-faced Gary Cooper gets to be the emotionally reserved one, while a teenage resistance fighter throws herself at him with girlish abandon. (The resistance fighter is played by Ingrid Bergman, who with her short haircut and full eyebrows looks hilariously like Dave Foley.) There's some Lone Survivor-type small unit action in the mountains, and some Reservoir Dogs-style tension amongst the resistance cell, and in the end Cooper dies the most noble way a man can: manning a machinegun in a narrow pass to hold back an entire army, while his comrades drag his teenage girlfriend away crying and screaming. The three hours just flew by, I loved it. It helped that this one was in colour. |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
I'm going to use this thread to talk about really good movies I've seen lately. by 02/28/2020, 3:01am PST  Have you seen Wind Across The Everglades NT by 02/28/2020, 7:07am PST Not yet, but it's going on my list. Any good? NT by 02/29/2020, 9:30am PST It's supposed to be, another swamp pitcher by 02/29/2020, 10:28am PST The new Rambo and Terminator movies are both excellent. by 04/01/2020, 4:07am PDT I have to talk about a movie I hated to get to one I loved. Spoilers for both! by 04/23/2020, 6:25pm PDT |
