Mmnn. I was very disappointed with this movie as I had been quite looking forward to watching it. It was produced and directed by Sam Wood and starred Garry Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou and Joseph Calleia. The script was based on Ernest Hemingway's 1940 novel. It details the story of an American International Brigades volunteer, Robert Jordan (Cooper), who is fighting in the Spanish Civil War against the Franco led fascists. During his mission to blow up a strategically important bridge to protect the Republican forces, Jordan falls in love with a young woman guerilla fighter (Bergman). It was the second-highest grossing film of 1943 (earning $6.3 million in the USA and Canada) and, on a reissue in 1957, accumulated an additional $800,000. After adjustments for inflation and the size of the population when released, it ranks among the top 100 popular movies of all time at the domestic box office.
So, why was I not impressed? Apart from a powerful section where a small group of Republican guerillas, having taken up a position behind a outcrop of rocks on a small hill, were bombed to bits by aeroplanes, I found much of the film rather boring. Too much time was spent on the relationship between Cooper and Bergman. Was it a war film with a built-in love story, or a love-story with a war background? Although this was Bergman's first Technicolour movie, she had already starred in the successful Intermezzo (1939) and Casablanca (1942). Here, in my opinion, she was miscast - I thought her acting was not believable, particular when, from the first, she had moon-eyes for Cooper*. A pity, as she is one of my favourite actresses (see Notorious). Cooper, I have always found rather wooden and lacking in charisma - most women would probably disagree with me! The various Spanish actors seemed to border on caricatures. The action round the bridge, and the bridge itself, were also disappointing - was everything done on the cheap? The enemy's tanks were patently not made of metal and even the rocks often appeared 'fake'.
Jordan, of course, has the bell 'tolling' for him at the end; but I didn't not feel any great sympathy. I wonder if I should try Hemingway's book? It would be a first and I feel I have so many more interesting authors to read first.
* I have just read she had an affair with Cooper during the filming!
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