A Farewell to Arms is a 1957 American DeLuxe Color CinemaScope drama film directed by Charles Vidor. Thescreenplay by Ben Hecht, based in part on a 1930 play by Laurence Stallings, was the second feature film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1929 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. It was the last film produced by David O. Selznick. An earlier film version, A Farewell to Arms starred Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes.[3] Contents   [hide]  ·       1Plot ·       2Cast ·       3Production notes ·       4Reception o   4.1Critical response o   4.2Awards and nominations ·       5See also ·       6References ·       7External links Plot[edit] Frederick Henry (Rock Hudson) is an American officer serving in an ambulance unit for the Italian Army during World War I. While recovering from a wound in a British base hospital in northern Italy, he is cared for by Catherine Barkley (Jennifer Jones), a Red Cross nurse he had met earlier, near the front, and they engage in an affair. Frederick's friend, the doctor, convinces the army that Frederick's knee is more severely wounded than it actually is and the two continue their romance but never get married. Catherine discovers she is pregnant but after sneaking alcohol into the hospital for Frederick, the head nurse Miss Van Campen (Mercedes McCambridge) discovers the duplicity and separates them. She informs Frederick's superiors that he has fully recovered from his wounds and is ready for active duty. During their separation, Catherine comes to believe Frederick has abandoned her. Following the Battle of Caporetto, Frederick and his close friend Major Alessandro Rinaldi (Vittorio De Sica) assist the locals in fleeing the invading German/Austrian armies. Along the forced march, several people die or are left behind due to exhaustion. When the two ambulance drivers are finally able to report to a local army base, the commandant assumes they are both deserters from the front. Rinaldi is executed by the Italian military; enraged, Frederick knocks out the kerosene lamps and flees, jumping into the river. Wanted by the Italian army, Frederick evades capture and meets up with Catherine. They flee Milan to hide out on a lake on the Italian-Swiss border (Lake Lugano or Lake Maggiore). Fearing arrest by the police, Catherine persuades Frederick to flee to Switzerland by rowboat; after some adventures, they land successfully in Switzerland. Claiming to be tourists trying to evade the war, the two are allowed to remain in neutral Switzerland. Catherine's pregnancy progresses but due to the conditions around them, the pregnancy becomes complicated and Catherine is hospitalized. Their child is stillborn, and Catherine dies shortly afterward. Frederick leaves, shocked, and wanders the empty streets. Cast[edit] ·       Rock Hudson as Frederick Henry ·       Jennifer Jones as Catherine Barkley ·       Vittorio De Sica as Major Alessandro Rinaldi ·       Oskar Homolka as Dr. Emerich ·       Mercedes McCambridge as Miss Van Campen ·       Elaine Stritch as Helen Ferguson ·       Kurt Kasznar as Bonello ·       Victor Francen as Colonel Valentini ·       Franco Interlenghi as Aymo ·       Leopoldo Trieste as Passini ·       José Nieto as Major Stampi (as Jose Nieto) ·       Georges Bréhat as Captain Bassi (as Georges Brehat) ·       Johanna Hofer as Mrs. Zimmerman ·       Eduard Linkers as Lieutenant Zimmerman ·       Eva Kotthaus as Delivery Room Nurse ·       Alberto Sordi as Father Galli ·       Joan Shawlee as Blonde Nurse Production notes[edit] For many years, David O. Selznick had wanted to film the Hemingway novel, but Warner Bros. owned the property and refused to sell it to him. He found himself in an advantageous bargaining position when Warner Bros. bought the remake rights to A Star is Born, to which he owned the foreign rights. Without them, the studio could not release their intended remake with Judy Garland overseas. Selznick offered to relinquish his rights to Star in exchange for the rights to Farewell, and Warner Bros. agreed.[4] On October 25, 1956, Selznick contacted director John Huston at the Blue Haven Hotel in Tobago and enthusiastically welcomed him to the project. He advised him his contract with 20th Century Fox called for severe financial penalties if the film went over schedule and/or budget, and urged him to concentrate wholly on the film until principal filming was completed.[5] Selznick's concerns increased as Huston began to tinker with the script and spend an inordinate amount of time on pre-production preparations, and on March 19, 1957, he sent the director a lengthy memo outlining the problems he foresaw arising from Huston's lack of cooperation.[6]Two days later, Huston announced he could not agree with Selznick on any of the issues he had raised and quit the project. Based on correspondence to Charles Vidor, it appears the producer's relationship with Huston's replacement was acrimonious as well.[7] The producer later said the film was "not one of the jobs of which I am most proud."[8] The film was shot on location in the Italian Alps, Venzone in the Province of Udine in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, and Rome. It was budgeted at $4,353,000, and grossed little more than that. According to Carlos Baker's 1969 biography Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, the Nobel Laureate was informed by Selznick that he would receive a $50,000 bonus from any profits the movie made. Unhappy at Selznick's nepotistic decision to cast his nearly 40-year-old wife as a character intended to be in her early 20s, he wrote back "If, by some chance your movie, which features the 38-year-old Mrs. Selznick as 24-year-old Catherine Barkley, does succeed in earning $50,000, I suggest that you take all of that money down to the local bank, have it converted to nickels, and then shove them up your ass until they come out your mouth." Reception[edit] Critical response[edit] Hemingway's intuition proved correct as A Farewell To Arms opened to low box office receipts and harsh negative reviews after it premiered in 1957. The film would be forgotten by the moviegoing public as an epic in later years. In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther noted, "Mr. Selznick's picture . . . lacks that all-important awareness of the inescapable presence and pressure of war. That key support to the structure of the theme has been largely removed by Ben Hecht's script and by a clear elimination of subtle thematic overtones . . . [it] is a tedious account of a love affair between two persons who are strangely insistent upon keeping it informal . . . as a pure romance . . . it has shortcomings. The essential excitement of a violent love is strangely missing in the studied performances that Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones give in the leading roles. Mr. Hudson is most noticeably unbending, as if he were cautious and shy, but Miss Jones plays the famous Catherine Barkley with bewildering nervous moves and grimaces. The show of devotion between two people is intensely acted, not realized. It is questionable, indeed, whether Mr. Hudson and Miss Jones have the right personalities for these roles."[9] TV Guide calls it "an overblown Hollywood extravaganza that . . . hasn't improved with age . . . the chief virtue of this hollow epic is the stupendous color photography of the Italian Alps . . . also enjoyable is Vittorio De Sica's inspired performance as the wily Maj. Rinaldi, but it's not enough to offset the flagrant overacting by Jones and the woodenness of Hudson."[10] Time Out New York describes it as an "inflated remake" with "surplus production values and spectacle" and adds, "A padded Ben Hecht script and Selznick's invariable tendency to overkill are equally to blame."[11] In his review of the DVD release, Jeremiah Kipp of Slant Magazine awarded the film two out of a possible five stars and stated, "To those willing to endure A Farewell To Arms: Don't be a hero! . . . We have David O. Selznick to blame for this bloated two-hour-plus Technicolor remake, announcing from the larger-than-life opening credits set against epic shots of sunsets, mountains, and valleys that he's aiming for another Gone with the Wind . . . without compelling lovers at the heart of his grand-scale love story, it's all just a meaningless protracted spectacle."[12] After this film, David O. Selznick left the movies completely, producing no other films. The movie earned an estimated $5 million in North American rentals[13] and by the end of 1958 had made worldwide rentals of $6.9 million.[2] Fox made some money on the movie but Selznick did not recover his costs.[2] Awards and nominations[edit] Vittorio De Sica was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor but lost to Red Buttons for Sayonara. David Selznick's 'A Farewell to Arms'; Hemingway Story Is New Film at Roxy Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones Are Starred By BOSLEY CROWTHER Published: January 25, 1958 THERE is a noticeable difference between the structures of "A Farewell to Arms" as Ernest Hemingway wrote it and as David O. Selznick now presents it on the screen. And it is this major alteration that largely accounts, we feel sure, for a sense of deficiency and inconsequence that emerges from the over-long film. Mr. Hemingway's story concerns a tense and tragic love affair that takes place between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse on the Italian front in World War I. And all the way through, this personal story is surrounded by the haunting shapes of war—its magnitude, its madness, its horrible pain and futility. In the end the pattern of the romance is manifested to be the same as that of war. But Mr. Selznick's picture, which came to the Roxy yesterday, lacks that all-imporant awareness of the inescapable presence and pressure of war. That key support to the structure of the theme has been largely removed by Ben Hecht's script and by a clear elimination of subtle thematic overtones. True, the developing romance of the ambulance driver and the nurse is interrupted on two occasions by two giant pictorial representations of war. Shortly after their formal introduction, which takes place at the beginning of the film at a lovely British base hospital in northern Italy, the hero drives his ambulance up to the Austrian front, and during this sequence we are treated to some great views of military movements amid mountain scenery. These views of long lines of trucks and soldiers working their way up switchback roads and of artillery blasting away in the snow-covered mountains are truly awesome in color and CinemaScope. Filmed in Italy, they galvanize you briefly with a sense of the nature of war on that Alpine front. The second pictorial intrusion of the realities of war comes later, after the romance has been fully set, with a brief, agonizing section representing the famous Caporetto retreat. This section, staged with obvious war-film "touches" and shot in a Rome studio, is less effective. It ends with the shameful execution of Rinaldi, the hero's friend—an incident not in the novel—and the hero's escape from war. Except for those two blocked-out reminders, you scarcely know a war is going on. For the rest, Mr. Selznick's picture is a tedious account of a love affair between two persons who are strangely insistent upon keeping it informal—except, as they carefully explain, in the eyes of God. They spend long hours romancing in a hospital, while the hero is recovering from a wound, and then they spend long hours throwing snowballs at each other in true winter-carnival fashion at a Swiss resort while awaiting the birth of their child. Throughout, the ominous note of doom is missing, so that the sudden terminal tragedy, when it occurs, seems more a sheer mistake in obstetrics than an inevitable irony in these people's lives. As a pure romance, too, it has shortcomings. The essential excitement of a violent love is strangely missing in the studied performances that Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones give in the leading roles. Mr. Hudson is most noticeably unbending, as if he were cautious and shy, but Miss Jones plays the famous Catherine Barkley with bewildering nervous moves and grimaces. The show of devotion between two people is intensely acted, not realized. It is questionable, indeed, whether Mr. Hudson and Miss Jones have the right personalities for these roles. As the hero's Italian friend, Rinaldi, Vittorio De Sica brings warmth and clarity to the one character in the picture who suggests the pathos and futility of war. Elaine Stritch and Mercedes McCambridge play a couple of American nurses obviously, and Alberto Sordi is elaborately gentle as an Italian chaplain-priest. Charles Vidor, who took over the direction in Italy after John Huston walked off the job, has managed to give the film pictorial excitement in a number of beautiful Italian and Swiss locales, even though there is not much significance in the central characters. This film, for all its size and color, doesn't do much more by Hemingway's book than was done by the sentimental version of it played by Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper some twenty-five years ago. On the stage at the Roxy is an ice revue featuring Harrison & Kossi and the Roxyettes and Squires. FAREWELL TO ARMS, screenplay by Ben Hecht, from the novel by Ernest Hemingway; directed by Charles Vidor; produced by David O. Selznick; distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox. At the Roxy. Running time: 152 minutes.  Lieut. Frederick Henry . . . . . Rock Hudson  Nurse Catherine Barkley . . . . . Jennifer Jones  Maj. Alessandro Rinaldi . . . . . Vittorio De Sica  Father Galli . . . . . Alberto Sordi  Bonello . . . . . Kurt Kasznar  Miss Van Campen . . . . . Mercedes McCambridge  Dr. Emerich . . . . . Oscar Homolka  Helen Ferguson . . . . . Elaine Stritch  Passini . . . . . Leopoldo Trieste  Aymo . . . . . Franco Interlenghi  Captain Bassi . . . . . Georges Brehat  Ambulance driver . . . . . Umberto Sacripanti  Colonel Valentini . . . . . Victor Francen  Lieut. Zimmerman . . . . . Eduard Linkers  Mrs. Zimmerman . . . . . Johanna Hofer     A Farewell To Arms: Time for a new film version February 15, 2012 By Stan Trybulski Leave A Comment A FAREWELL TO ARMS: It is time for Hollywood to do a version finally worthy of Hemingway’s great masterpiece and worthy of the far more sophisticated movie audiences of today.    Given the rousing success of The War Horse and Downton Abbey, with their emphasis on World War I, it is time, perhaps past time, for a new film version of Ernest Hemingway’s A FAREWELL TO ARMS (AFTA).  And with the Academy Awards fast approaching, there can be no better time for me to make my plea.  I must confess here that AFTA is my favorite of all of Hemingway’s fiction, both novels and short stories, and I would love to see a modern film version. A version that can finally do justice to this most tragic love story ever told set to a backdrop of perhaps the greatest modern war story ever written.  A story that is central to the dominant theme of Hemingway’s life and works: A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Two earlier versions of AFTA were filmed long ago: the first in 1932 and starring a very young Gary Cooper and the Broadway stage star Helen Hayes; the 1957 remake starred Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.  Both of these versions were constrained by then current social mores and attitudes toward war, as well as cinematic limitations.  All of these problems should now be easily overcome. The 1932 version was produced entirely on Hollywood back lots instead of on location in Italy as the 1957 version was, which along with the rudimentary production techniques of eighty-years-ago, rendered the battle scenes, as well as the disastrous retreat by the Italian Army from Caporetto, and the rowing up Lake Maggiore to Switzerland and freedom in the driving rain, somewhat ineffective then and very dated now.  Interestingly, while this version was nominated in 1943 for Best Picture, it actually won Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Recording, stark evidence of how far cinema technology has progressed from then to now. What the first version did have was the lack of enforcement of the Hollywood Code which allowed a more realistic and adult treatment of the love scenes between the American ambulance driver Frederic Henry and the Scottish nurse Catherine Barkley.   Also more explicit in that version was the discussion of the bordellos visited by Henry and Major Rinaldi, played by Adolphe Menjou.  Moreover, there was an upfront and frank presentation of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Catherine, while not quite as true as portrayed on the pages of Hem’s novel, was far more explicit than in the 1957 version which waited until the last thirty minutes to bring it to the viewers’ attention. The 1957 version, however, was longer by some forty minutes and able to stay more true to the novel, portraying the horrific retreat from Caporetto with all its ugliness, horror and shame (or lack of it) with an honesty that did reasonable justice to the writer and his work.  It is this sequence, which comprises Part III of the novel, that Vittorio di Sica, who earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, brought more depth and realism to the character of Major Rinaldi. A depth created by the screenwriter taking liberty and giving him an ugly death that was not in the novel.  Yet I suspect that it was a kind of death that Hem would have written about.  In any event, Hem would have no say about any of that, of course, as years before he had foolishly sold away the film rights without reading the fine print. In addition, the cinematography was a vast improvement, not only because it was in color, but because it could take advantage of the locations in the Italian Alps and Lake Maggiore.   Furthermore, the length of the remake allowed for the continual interplay of beauty and happiness and horror and sadness that Hem was a master of creating on the written page, an interplay that culminates in the tragedy of a stillbirth by Catherine and her subsequent hemorrhaging to death. So okay, Hollywood, let’s get on it and see what you can do today.   A new production is in order and would be a smash hit.  Right now I picture Matt Damon’s sagging shouders in the last scene of THE GOOD SHEPHERD and I visualize him as Frederic’s tragic figure, as well as Robert De Niro as Major Rinaldi.  For the tragic Catherine, I leave that choice up to someone else.     The film's title card reads "David O. Selznick presents his production of Ernest Hemingway's romantic tragedy of World War I, A Farewell to Arms." Opening credits conclude with the following written foreword: "We tell a story out of one of the wildest theatres of World War I-the snow-capped Alpine peaks and muddy plains of northern Italy. Here between 1915 and 1918 the Italians stood against the Germans and Austrian invaders. No people ever fought more valiantly, no nation ever rose more gallantly out of defeat to victory. But our story is not of war alone. It is a tale also of love between an American boy and an English girl who bade their tragic farewell to arms while the cannon roared." The onscreen credits for Veniero Colasanti and John Moore read "costumes and set decoration."        Hemingway's novel was serialized in Scribners Magazine (May-October 1929). According to news items and memos written by Selznick, as reprinted in a modern source, in 1956, he purchased the rights to the novel from Warner Bros., which acquired them from Paramount in 1946. Warners refused to sell the rights to Selznick until he offered to trade the foreign rights and negative to his 1937 film A Star Is Born (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40). Once Selznick acquired the rights, he negotiated first with M-G-M and RKO, but finally struck a deal with Twentieth Century-Fox to finance and distribute the film, according to Hollywood Reporter news items printed in May and June of 1956. Under this agreement, Selznick was subject to severe financial penalties if the production went over budget. Selznick then hired John Huston, who was also considered by Warners, to direct, warning that he must work under a tight schedule.        Rehearsals began in mid-March 1957, and, according to a memo, after watching the first two days, Selznick became worried about Huston's slow progress, cautioning the director that he would never be able to stay within budget. Selznick was also angered when Huston proposed changing the script just four days before the start of production. Huston wanted to emphasize the military aspects of the story and thus be more faithful to the novel, while Selznick was more interested in the love story and, according to a March 25, 1957 Hollywood Reporter news item, tried to foist a more commercial script on Huston, secretly written by three Italians, that built up the part played by Selznick's wife, Jennifer Jones. On March 21, 1957, Selznick forced Huston to resign. None of Huston's footage was in the released film. According to the March 25, 1957 Hollywood Reporter news item, Selznick considered William Wellman, Billy Wilder, Carol Reed, Vittorio De Sica and Pietro Germi to direct before finally hiring Charles Vidor. Selznick borrowed Rock Hudson from Universal for the production.        In the novel, "Henry" and "Catherine's" love affair does not begin until Henry is sent to the hospital in Milan. According to a memo, Selznick decided to move the affair to the lovers' first meeting to heighten the passion between them. Unlike the film, the character of "Rinaldi" is not executed in the novel, and Catherine's baby is stillborn in the novel. The novel also contained many more love scenes than the film. The New York Times review commented that the film [unlike the novel] "lacks all important awareness of the inescapable presence and pressure of war...you scarcely know a war is going on."        The PCA also played a role in modifying the tone of Hemingway's novel. According to materials contained in the films' MPAA/PCA file at the AMPAS Library, the PCA insisted that many of the illicit love scenes contained in the novel be eliminated and argued that the film must present a definite voice for morality. To this end, the speech in which "Ferguson" condemns war-time romances was added. The PCA also insisted that Henry express his regret that he and Catherine were never married.        Interiors were filmed at the Cinecitt Studios in Rome, and locations were shot at Misirune, Udine, Milan, Pallanza, Stresa and Lake Maggiore in Italy, according to publicity materials contained in the film's production file at the AMPAS Library. Modern sources add that James Wong Howe completed shooting the last interiors at the Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Vittorio De Sica was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. A Farewell to Arms was the last production for Selznick, who died in 1965. In 1960, Fox acquired his interest in the picture for $1,000,000, according to a January 1960 Hollywood Reporter news item. In 1932, Paramount produced the first adaptation of Hemingway's novel, directed by Frank Borzage and starring Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40). In 1955, CBS broadcast a televised version, adapted by Gore Vidal and directed by Allen Reisner, starring Guy Madison and Dianna Lynn.   A FAREWELL TO ARMS(1957) MAIN LINKS OVERVIEWFULL CREDITSFULL SYNOPSISNOTESMUSICSCREENPLAY INFOORIGINAL PRINT INFOGENREKEYWORDS data from AFI catalog USER REVIEWSOTHER REVIEWSARTICLESMONEYAWARDSQUOTESTRIVIAHOME VIDEO REVIEWSMISC NOTESALTERNATE VERSIONSTHEATRICAL ASPECT RATIOVIDEOTCM ARCHIVESFAN SITES TCM Messageboards Post your comments here ADD YOUR COMMENT> SHARE: Twitter Share 2 Email Remind Me TCMDb Archive MaterialsVIEW ALL ARCHIVES (1) OVERVIEW powered by AFI Brief Synopsis During World War I, Lt. Frederic Henry, an American Red Cross ambulance driver assigned to an Italian unit at the battlefront, returns from his leave in Milan to regale his womanizing doctor friend, Maj. Alessandro Rinaldi, with stories of his conquests. Rinaldi retorts that the English have opened a new hospital staffed with beautiful nurses, among them the enigmatic Catherine Barkley. Henry meets the morose Catherine and becomes intrigued when she confides her regrets about not marrying her fiancé before he died in battle. Just before his battalion is to launch an offensive, Henry visits Catherine, who slaps him when he caresses her. When it starts to storm, Catherine, terrified of the rain, begins to sob and after Henry comforts her, they fall into a passionate embrace. After a night of lovemaking, Henry pledges his love but Catherine remains noncommittal. As the troops file out of town, Henry scours the crowd for Catherine, who, experiencing a change of heart, threads her way through the throngs to meet him. After they embrace, Catherine begs Henry to return to her. The ambulances follow the troops on their long trek through the snow-covered mountains, preparing to whisk the injured back to the hospital. When the shelling starts, two ambulances are destroyed and Henry is badly wounded in the knee. His friends hurriedly load him into the remaining ambulance and speed down the mountain to the hospital. Henry is to be sent to the new American hospital in Milan, and so Rinaldi arranges for Catherine to be transferred there, too. The hospital's first patient, Henry is attended to by the stern head nurse, Miss Van Campen, and the more sympathetic Helen Ferguson. On the day that Catherine finally arrives, Henry reassures her of his love and proposes. Aware that as a military wife, she will be sent away from the front, Catherine rejects his proposal and asserts that she does not need marriage. Although Ferguson is cynical about wartime romances, she helps conceal Henry and Catherine's affair from Van Campen. When Catherine informs Henry that she is pregnant, he insists on marriage, but she refuses once again and instead they pledge their vows to each other. Soon after, Van Campen discovers Catherine in Henry's hospital bed and indignantly notifies headquarters, assuring that Henry will be sent back to active duty that night. After one final fling in a hotel room, they tearfully bid farewell. Back at the front, Henry finds Rinaldi a broken man, the victim of trying to piece together too many mangled soldiers. The ambulances are dispatched to Capretto, but as they approach the city, they find the area in ruins, its houses bombed, its people fleeing in panic and the Italian army in hasty retreat from the savage Germans. With the Germans in pursuit, the doctors and ambulances are ordered to leave the hospital patients behind and accompany the retreating troops. Henry begs his friend Father Galli to join them, but the priest elects to face certain death and remain behind with the patients. The fleeing masses find the roads littered with the dead bodies of soldiers, women and small babies. When the ambulance loses an axle and breaks down, Rinaldi starts to rant about surrender and is arrested as a German spy sent to undermine morale. After Rinaldi is found guilty and sentenced to die, Henry pleads in vain for his friend's life as Rinaldi is hauled in front of the firing squad. When the court then challenges his identity, Henry deserts, plunging into the river. Taking the clothes from a corpse he finds floating in the water, Henry hops a train back to Milan. Upon finding Catherine, Henry declares that he is through with war and has made a separate peace. Deciding to run away to Switzerland, they brave the crossing in a small rowboat. After being battered by a storm and nearly being detected by a patrol boat, they reach the border and meet Lt. Zimmerman, a Swiss police officer, who sends them to his mother's hotel in the mountains. Six weeks later, Catherine, visibly pregnant, refuses to wed Henry for fear of creating a scandal in the village. With the coming of spring, Catherine goes into labor. After a protracted, painful labor, Dr. Emerich advises performing a caesarian, and soon after, delivers a baby boy. Over dinner that night, Emerich gently informs Henry that his son has died, and Henry declares that his son's death is punishment for his own war crimes. Back at the hospital, Henry learns that Catherine has begun to hemorrhage, and prays for her life. As he clasps her hand, Catherine dies and Henry promises that she will be with him forever. He then leaves the hospital, absorbed in his memories of Catherine. MEDIA:WATCH MOVIE CLIPS|VIEW TRAILERCLOSE THE FULL SYNOPSIS Cast & Crew Charles VidorDirector Rock HudsonLt. Frederic Henry Jennifer JonesNurse Catherine Barkley Vittorio De SicaMaj. Allesandro Rinaldi Oscar HomolkaDr. Emerich Mercedes McCambridgeMiss Van Campen Elaine StritchHelen Ferguson Kurt KasznarBonello Victor FrancenCol. Valentini Franco InterlinghiAymo Leopoldo TriestePassini José NietoMaj. Stampi Georges BrehatCapt. Bassi SEE ALL CAST AND CREW Additional Details MPAA Ratings:  Premiere Info:  Los Angeles premiere: 18 Dec 1957 Release Date:  1957 Production Date:  [CinemaScope] EB*; AFI Color/B&W:  Color (DeLuxe) Distributions Co:  Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Sound:  Stereo (Westrex Recording System) Production Co:  Selznick Co., Inc., Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Duration(mins):  151-152 or 159 Country:  Italy and United States Duration(feet):      Duration(reels):      Leonard Maltin Ratings & Review LEONARD MALTIN MOVIE RATING ·         ·         ·         ·         ·         2.5 out of 4 Stars LEONARD MALTIN MOVIE REVIEW: D: Charles Vidor. Rock Hudson, Jennifer Jones, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Sordi, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch, Oscar Homolka. Overblown, padded remake has unconvincing leads, static treatment of WW1 story so romantically told in Hemingway novel. Hudson is American ambulance driver wounded in WW1 Italy who falls in love with nurse Jones. Last film produced by David O. Selznick. CinemaScope.     A Farewell to Arms     COMMENTS (0) BY JEREMIAH KIPP MAY 15, 2005 ·       ·       ·       ·       I didn't care much for the 1932 Gary Cooper version of A Farewell To Arms. But that earlier adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel about lovers struggling amid the cruelties of World War I was over in less than 90 minutes. We have David O. Selznick to blame for this bloated two-hour-plus Technicolor remake, announcing from the larger-than-life opening credits set against epic shots of sunsets, mountains, and valleys that he's aiming for another Gone with the Wind. As it turns out, the film was a critical and box office disaster, a huge setback for Mrs. Selznick (lead actress Jennifer Jones), and the final producer credit for this egotistical Hollywood tyrant. When ambulance driver Frederick Henry (Rock Hudson) is wounded in battle, he's cared for by stalwart nurse Catherine Barkley (Jones), and they proceed to moon over each other in endless “two characters in a room talkingâ€� sequences, punctuated by Cinemascope battles followed by “war-torn heroes marching through the mudâ€� sequences that fill out a widescreen image but are emotionally vacant. Without Gone with the Wind's sparring couple of brash Vivien Leigh and smug Clark Gable in the center of the whirlpool, replaced by tepid, lovey-dovey Hudson and Jones, Selznick is hopelessly lost. Without compelling lovers at the heart of his grand-scale love story, it's all just a meaningless protracted spectacle. Postcards are cheaper. (Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica livens things up in a supporting role as a womanizing doctor, but most of the other Italian roles are bumbling, Mammy-like attempts at comic relief.) Worst of all, the entire war narrative climaxes a full half-hour before the movie ends, at which point happy lovers Hudson and Jones go yodeling in the Swiss Alps. Their drawn-out bliss leads to a drawn-out pregnancy, culminating in a drawn-out miscarriage and climaxing in an agonizingly vain, drawn-out deathbed scene where Jennifer Jones mugs and twitches for all she's worth while Rock just sits there like his namesake. “The way I see it,â€� Selznick once boasted, “my function is to be responsible for everything.â€� But after a lifetime of meddling with directors, he got what was coming to him. A Farewell To Arms was a signature failure that sums up his entire career: a showman with big panache and no heart. It's good to know that history repeats itself in the movie business. Current big-dick impresario Harvey Weinstein, the man we love to hate, is still licking his wounds from his treacherous ride down Cold Mountain Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira?) (/É¡É’dˈzɪlÉ™/; [É¡oꜜdÊ‘iɽa] ( listen)) is a giant monster originating from a series of tokusatsufilms of the same name from Japan. It first appeared in IshirÅ� Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in numerous media including video games, novels,comic books, television shows, 28 films produced by Toho and two Hollywood films. The character is commonly alluded by the epithet "King of the Monsters"; a phrase first used in Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the Americanized version of Honda's original 1954 film. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons.[18] As the film series expanded, some stories took on less serious undertones portraying Godzilla as a hero while other plots still portrayed Godzilla as a destructive monster; sometimes the lesser of two threats who plays the defender by default but is still a danger to humanity. Contents  [hide]  1 Overview 1.1 Name 1.2 Characteristics 1.3 Size 1.4 Special effects details 2 Appearances 3 Cultural impact 3.1 Cultural ambassador 4 References 5 External links Overview Name Gojira (ゴジラ?) is a portmanteau of the Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ?, "gorilla"), and kujira (鯨（クジラ）?, "whale"), which is fitting because in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale",[19] alluding to his size, power and aquatic origin. One popular story is that "Gojira" was actually the nickname of a corpulent stagehand at Toho Studio.[20] Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed this in a 1998 BBC documentary devoted to Godzilla, "The backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories".[21] Godzilla's name was written in ateji as Gojira (呉爾羅?), where the kanji are used for phonetic value and not for meaning. The Japanese pronunciation of the name is [É¡odÊ‘iɽa] ( listen); the Anglicized form is /É¡É’dˈzɪlÉ™/, with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god", and the rest rhyming with "gorilla". In the Hepburn romanizationsystem, Godzilla's name is rendered as "Gojira", whereas in the Kunrei romanization system it is rendered as "Gozira". Characteristics Godzilla (and offspring) featured in Toho's ShÅ�wa, Heisei and Millennium films. Within the context of the Japanese films, Godzilla's exact origins vary, but it is generally depicted as an enormous, violent, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation.[22] Although the specific details of Godzilla's appearance have varied slightly over the years, the overall impression has remained consistent.[23]Inspired by the fictional Rhedosaurus created by animator Ray Harryhausen for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,[24] Godzilla's iconic character design was conceived as that of an amphibious reptilian monster based around the loose concept of a dinosaur[25] with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with muscular arms, spikes on its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.[26] Art director Akira Watanabe combined attributes of a Tyrannosaurus, an Iguanodon, a Stegosaurus and an alligator[27] to form a sort of blended chimera, inspired by illustrations from an issue of Life magazine.[28] To emphasise the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on survivors in Hiroshima.[29] The basic design has a reptilian visage, a robust build, an upright posture, a long tail and rows of serrated fins along the back. In the original film, the fins were added for purely aesthetic purposes, in order to further differentiate Godzilla from any other living or extinct creature.[30] Godzilla has a distinctive roar (transcribed in several comics as Skreeeonk!),[31][32] which was created by composer Akira Ifukube, who produced the sound by rubbing a pine-tar-resin-coated glove along the string of a contrabass and then slowing down the playback.[33] Godzilla is sometimes depicted as green in comics, cartoons and movie posters, but the costumes used in the movies were usually painted charcoal grey with bone-white dorsal fins up until the film Godzilla 2000.[30] Godzilla's atomic breath, as shown inGodzilla (1954). Godzilla's signature weapon is its "atomic breath," a nuclear blast that it generates inside of its body and unleashes from its jaws in the form of a blue or red radioactive heat ray.[34] Toho’s special effects department has used various techniques to render the breath, from physical gas-powered flames[35] to hand-drawn or computer-generated fire. Godzilla is shown to possess immense physical strength and muscularity. Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the original films, was a black belt in Judo and used his expertise to choreograph the battle sequences.[36] Godzilla can breathe underwater,[34] and is described in the original film by the character Dr. Yamane as a transitional form between a marine and a terrestrial reptile. Godzilla is shown to have great vitality: it is immune to conventional weaponry thanks to its rugged hide and ability to regenerate,[37] and as a result of surviving a nuclear explosion, it cannot be destroyed by anything less powerful.[1] Various films, television shows, comics and games have depicted Godzilla with additional powers such as an atomic pulse,[38] magnetism,[39] precognition,[40] fireballs,[41] an electric bite,[42] superhuman speed,[43] eye beams[44] and even flight.[45] Godzilla's allegiance and motivations have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans,[46] it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property[47] and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is not motivated to attack by predatory instinct: it doesn't eat people,[48] and instead sustains itself on radiation[49] and an omnivorous diet.[1][50] When inquired if Godzilla was "good or bad", producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto "God of Destruction" which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. "He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin."[48] Godzilla battles King Kong in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) In the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all the other monsters are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns equivalent to "it",[51] while in the English dubbed versions, Godzilla is explicitly described as a male, such as in the title of Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The creature in the 1998 Godzilla film was depicted laying eggs through parthenogenesis. In the various stories it has appeared in, Godzilla has been featured alongside many supporting characters. It has faced human opponents such as the JSDF, and other giant monsters, from recurring characters like King Ghidorah, Gigan andMechagodzilla to one-shot characters like Megalon, Biollante and Megaguirus. Godzilla is also shown to have allies, such asMothra, Rodan and Anguirus (though these characters were initially portrayed as Godzilla's rivals), and offspring, such asMinilla. Godzilla has even fought against fictional characters from other franchises in crossover media, such as King Kongand the Fantastic Four. Size Godzilla's size is inconsistent, changing from film to film and even from scene to scene for the sake of artistic license.[48] The miniature sets and costumes are typically built at a 1â�„25–1â�„50 scale[52] and filmed at 240 frames per second, to create the illusion of great size.[53] In the original 1954 film, Godzilla was scaled to be 50 m (164 ft) tall.[54] This was done so Godzilla could just peer over the largest buildings in Tokyo at the time.[55] In the 1956 American version, Godzilla is estimated to be over 122 m (400 ft) tall, because producer Joseph E. Levine felt that 50 m didn't sound "powerful enough".[56] As the series progressed Toho would rescale the character, eventually making Godzilla as tall as 100 m (328 ft).[57] This was so that it wouldn't be dwarfed by the newer bigger buildings in Tokyo's skyline such as the 242-meter-tall (794 ft) Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building which Godzilla destroyed in the film Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991). Supplementary information such as character profiles would also depict Godzilla as weighing between 20,000 and 60,000 tonnes (22,000 and 66,000 short tons).[54][58] In the American filmGodzilla (2014) from Legendary Pictures, Godzilla was scaled to be 108 m (354 ft), and weighing 90,000 tonnes (99,000 short tons),[59] making him the largest film incarnation of the character. Director Gareth Edwards wanted Godzilla "to be so big as to be seen from anywhere in the city, but not too big that he couldn’t be obscured".[60] The producers of the upcoming Godzilla Resurgence made Godzilla even taller than the Legendary version, at 118.5 m (389 ft).[61][62] Special effects details Suit fitting on the set of Godzilla Raids Again (1955), with Haruo Nakajima portraying Godzilla on the left. Godzilla's appearance has traditionally been portrayed in the films by an actor wearing a latex costume, though the character has also been rendered in animatronic, stop-motion and computer-generated form. Taking inspiration from King Kong, special effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya had initially wanted Godzilla to be portrayed via stop-motion, but prohibitive deadlines and a lack of experienced animators in Japan at the time made suitmation more practical. The first suit consisted of a body cavity made of thin wires and bamboo wrapped in chicken wire for support, and covered in fabric and cushions, which were then coated in latex. The first suit was held together by small hooks on the back, though subsequent Godzilla suits incorporated a zipper. Its weight was in excess of 100 kg (220 lb).[30] Prior to 1984, most Godzilla suits were made from scratch, thus resulting in slight design changes in each film appearance.[63] The most notable changes during the 1960s-70s were the reduction in Godzilla's number of toes and the removal of the character's external ears and prominent fangs, features which would later be reincorporated in the Godzilla designs from The Return of Godzilla (1984) onwards.[64] The most consistent Godzilla design was maintained from Godzilla vs Biollante (1989) to Godzilla vs Destoroyah (1995), when the suit was given a cat-like face and double rows of teeth.[65] Several suit actors had difficulties in performing as Godzilla, due to the suits' weight, lack of ventilation and diminished visibility.[30] Kenpachiro Satsuma in particular, who portrayed Godzilla from 1984 to 1995, described how the Godzilla suits he wore were even heavier and hotter than their predecessors, because of the incorporation of animatronics.[66] Satsuma himself suffered numerous medical issues during his tenure, including oxygen deprivation, near drowning, concussions, electric shocks, and lacerations to the legs from the suits' steel wire reinforcements wearing through the rubber padding.[67] The ventilation problem was partially solved in the suit used in 1994's Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, which was the first to include an air duct, which allowed suit actors to last longer during performances.[68] In the 1998 Godzilla film, special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos was instructed to redesign Godzilla as an incredibly fast runner.[69] At one point, it was planned to use motion capture from a human to create the movements of the computer-generated Godzilla, but it ended up looking too much like a human in a suit.[70]Tatopoulos subsequently reimagined the creature as a lean, digitigrade bipedal iguana that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via CGI.[71]Several scenes had the monster portrayed by stuntmen in suits. The suits were similar to those used in the Toho films, with the actors' heads being located in the monster's neck region, and the facial movements controlled via animatronics. However, because of the creature's horizontal posture, the stuntmen had to wear metal leg extenders, which allowed them to stand two meters (six feet) off the ground with their feet bent forward. The film's special effects crew also built a 1â�„6 scale animatronic Godzilla for close-up scenes, whose size outmatched that of Stan Winston's T. rex in Jurassic Park.[72] Kurt Carley performed the suitmation sequences for the adult Godzilla.[3] In the 2014 Godzilla film, the character was portrayed entirely via CGI. Godzilla's design in the reboot was intended to stay true to that of the original series, though the film's special effects team strove to make the monster "more dynamic than a guy in a big rubber suit."[73] To create a CG version of Godzilla, The Moving Picture Company (MPC) studied various animals such as bears, Komodo dragons, lizards, lions and wolves which helped the visual effects artists visualize Godzilla's body structure like that of its underlying bone, fat and muscle structure as well as the thickness and texture of its scale.[74] Motion capture was also used for some of Godzilla's movements. TJ Storm provided the motion capture performance for Godzilla by wearing sensors in front of a green screen.[4][5][6][7] Appearances Main articles: Godzilla (comics) and Godzilla (franchise) Cultural impact Main article: Godzilla in popular culture Godzilla's star on theHollywood Walk of Fame. Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide[75][76] and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the kaiju subset of the tokusatsu genre. Godzilla’s vaguely humanoid appearance and strained, lumbering movements endeared it to Japanese audiences, who could relate to Godzilla as a sympathetic character despite its wrathful nature.[77] Audiences respond positively to the character because it acts out of rage and self-preservation and shows where science and technology can go wrong.[78] Godzilla has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier Godzilla films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening, nuclear monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the possibility of recurrence.[79] As the series progressed, so did Godzilla, changing into a less destructive and more heroic character as the films became geared towards children. Since then, the character has fallen somewhere in the middle, sometimes portrayed as a protector of the world from external threats and other times as a bringer of destruction. In 1996, Godzilla received the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award,[80] as well, Godzilla was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004 to celebrate the premiere of the character's 50th anniversary film, Godzilla: Final Wars.[81] Godzilla's pop-cultural impact has led to the creation of numerous parodies and tributes, as seen in media such as Bambi Meets Godzilla, which was ranked as one of the "50 greatest cartoons",[82] various episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000,[83] and the song "Godzilla", by Blue Öyster Cult.[84] Godzilla has also been used in advertisements, such as in a commercial for Nike, where Godzilla lost a game ofbasketball to NBA player Charles Barkley.[85] The commercial was subsequently adapted into a comic book illustrated by Jeff Butler. Godzilla has also appeared in a commercial for Snickers candy bar, which served as an indirect promo for the 2014 movie. Godzilla's success inspired the creation of numerous other monster characters, such as Gamera, Yonggary and Gorgo. Godzilla's fame and saurian appearance has had an impact on the scientific community. Gojirasaurus is a dubious genus of coelophysid dinosaur, named bypaleontologist and admitted Godzilla fan Kenneth Carpenter.[86] Dakosaurus is an extinct marine crocodile of the Jurassic Period, which researchers informallynicknamed "Godzilla".[87] Paleontologists have written tongue-in-cheek speculative articles about Godzilla's biology, with Ken Carpenter tentatively classifying it as aceratosaur based on its skull shape, four fingered hands and dorsal scutes, and paleontologist Darren Naish expressing skepticism while commenting on Godzilla's unusual morphology.[88] Godzilla's ubiquity in pop-culture has led to the mistaken assumption that the character is in the public domain, resulting in litigation by Toho to protect their corporate asset from becoming a generic trademark. In April 2008, Subway depicted a giant monster in a commercial for their Five Dollar Footlong sandwich promotion. Toho filed a lawsuit against Subway for using the character without permission, demanding $150,000 in compensation.[89] In February 2011, Toho sued Honda for depicting a fire-breathing monster in a commercial for the Honda Odyssey. The monster was never mentioned by name, being seen briefly on a video screen inside the minivan.[90] The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society christened a vessel Gojira. Its purpose is to target and harass Japanese whalers in defense of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Gojira was renamed MV Brigitte Bardot in May 2011 due to legal pressure from Toho.[91] Gojira is the name of a French death metal band, formerly known as Godzilla; legal problems forced the band to change their name.[92] In May 2015, Toho launched a lawsuit against Voltage Picturesover a planned picture starring Anne Hathaway. Promotional material released at the Cannes Film Festival used images of Godzilla.[93] Cultural ambassador To encourage tourism in April 2015 the central Shinjuku ward of Tokyo named Godzilla an official cultural ambassador. During an unveiling of a giant Godzilla bust at Toho headquarters, Shinjuki mayor Kenichi Yoshizumi stated "Godzillia is a character that is the pride of Japan." The mayor extended a residency certificate to an actor in a rubber suit representing Godzilla, but as the suit's hands were not designed for grasping it was accepted on Godzilla's behalf by a Toho executive. Reporters noted that Shinjuku ward has been flattened by Godzilla in three Toho movies.[94][95] References Bibliography Brothers, Peter H. (2009). Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men - The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.ISBN 1492790354. Kalat, David (2007). A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series. McFarland. ISBN 0786430990. Ragone, August (2007, 2014). Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-0-8118-6078-9. Ryfle, Steve (1998). Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of the Big G. Toronto: ECW Press. ISBN 1550223488. Tsutsui, William M. (2003). Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. I   ebay3513