For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Review

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

I have, as of this writing, not read an Ernest Hemingway novel. Apart from the biopic In Love and War, I think I have never really come across anything Papa related. No, I tell a lie: I have gone to a local bar named Papa's after Hemingway. I therefore have no knowledge of how close or far For Whom the Bell Tolls is to the original novel. I trust that it is close to it. I also trust that few people would want to sit through it even if they have read the novel. 

Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) is in Spain fighting for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. He has just finished a successful mission to blow up a bridge, though at a high cost. Robert is forced to kill his friend rather than have him fall into enemy hands. Now, Robert is tasked with blowing up another bridge. He makes contact with the Republican partisans in the mountains. There is Anselmo (Vladimir Sokoloff), the old man of the mountains. There is fat Pablo (Akim Tamiroff), who was once a strong revolutionary but has grown disillusioned and boozy. There is Pablo's wife Perla (Katina Paxinou), a fierce and strong woman. There is fiery Agustin (Arturo de Cordoba) and wily gypsy Rafael (Mikhail Rasumny).

And then there is Maria (Ingrid Bergman). Our simple 19-year-old peasant girl is still growing out her hair. She has survived the horrors of the Francoist supporters who killed her parents. She quickly falls in love with Roberto. Perla, ever wise, knows that Ingles (English in Spanish and Perla's name for Robert) is also drawn to Maria. Robert wants to keep his growing attraction in check. Love cannot come in the way of war. 

However, the Francoists have targeted the bridge themselves. Pablo is unreliable, letting his bitterness, booze and ideas of protecting his own people overrun his thinking. It is to where Pablo has sabotaged the dynamite needed to blow up the bridge. Roberto can still do it, but it puts all their lives at risk. Who will live and who will hear the bells toll for thee?

For Whom the Bell Tolls was highly successful both financially and critically on its release. The film was the second-highest grossing film of 1943. It received nine Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. At the 16th Academy Awards, For Whom the Bell Tolls received acting nominations in all four categories for Cooper, Bergman, Tamiroff and Paxinou. Out of all those nominations though, the film came away with only one win. 

I like to think that this is a rare time when the Academy overall made the right choice in rejecting all but one of For Whom the Bell Tolls' nominations. The film is a punishing two hours and forty-five minutes long. I cannot imagine that the Hemingway novel is that massive. To be fair, some of its length is due to both an overture and intermission. I do not object to Victor Young's Castilian-tinged score, one of the film's nominations. In fact, Young's music actually does a lot of heavy lifting in the film. 

Of particular note is during a battle scene between the guerillas and the Francoist military. The music sells the action, for without it, the scene would be rather dull. 

One does wonder how some of the casting could have been thought of as worthy of recognition. Out of the four acting nominations only Katina Paxinou came away a winner for her turn as the fiery and intelligent Perla. The film does come alive whenever she is on screen. Paxinou makes Perla this fierce yet wise woman. She dismisses her looks as being "old" and "ugly", yet she is also courageous and unafraid of any man. Paxinou becomes the leader of this group of guerillas due to her mix of courage and intelligence. When some of the Republicans want to rescue another group of guerillas she scolds them for their foolishness. "What good is courage if you have no head?", she angrily states. You can see that abandoning the group to their fate tears at her. However, she also sees that her group would die needlessly. Katina Paxinou gives the standout performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls. It is easy to see why hers was the only Academy Award win.

Gary Cooper was fine as Roberto. He was solid and stoic and firm in the role. However, his love scenes with Ingrid Bergman were a bit flat. It looked odd separate from the eleven-year age gap between Cooper and Bergman. The term that I would apply is "overwrought". It is as if they wanted to push For Whom the Bell Tolls to be this big epic romance when it somehow ended up being a drag. 

I think the struggle to make this a convincing or even plausible love story is due in large part to Ingrid Bergman. She is one of the greatest actresses to ever work in film. She, however, was wildly miscast here. She is a twenty-eight-year-old Nordic woman trying to play a nineteen-year-old Iberian peasant. It is almost laughable to think that Ingrid Bergman could pass herself off as a simple Spanish teen peasant. Bergman clearly thought that For Whom the Bell Tolls was the prestige production of her 1943 filmography. She cut her hair for the part, preventing any retakes for the film that she made immediately before For Whom the Bell Tolls.

That other film that Bergman thought was inferior to For Whom the Bell Tolls was Casablanca. 

I can see why she thought For Whom the Bell Tolls would be an acting stretch. It was enough of a stretch for her to be nominated for Best Actress for this instead of for Casablanca. However, no amount of makeup could make up for her almost exaggerated protestations of love for Roberto. I hate saying that Ingrid Bergman gave a bad performance. Therefore, I blame director Sam Wood (who was not nominated for his work on the film). I can say that because Akim Tamiroff, the final acting nominee, did sometimes play Pablo as if it were a comedy.

Another poor decision from both Wood and screenwriter Dudley Nichols (also not nominated). I do not understand why they had a flashback to Pablo's early days in the civil war. We both saw what had happened and had Perla tells us what happened. Sometimes the characters would mouth the words to Perla's voice. It looked odd and did not work.

I can give some credit to some of the acting. As well as the aforementioned Paxinou, Arturo de Cordoba did well as the fiercely loyal partisan Agustin. It also helped that he was the only actual Latin actor in the film. Yes, there is Pedro de Cordoba (no relation) as the villainous Colonel Miranda. However, that is a stretch. 

I think that For Whom the Bell Tolls was far too long for its own good. I think if the film had not been so convinced of its sweeping epic nature, it would have been good. I fear that Ernest Hemingway is a hard writer to adapt to film. 

DECISION: D+