"A FAREWELL TO ARMS"
. . . A light switch suddenly turns on and out of the darkness of my blindness, in walks
Helen Hayes. Maybe it was the “First Lady of the Theatre” moniker that put me off; you know...all that "AHKTING" and stodgy theatrical hijinks ensuing.
0R it could have been my first memories of Hayes as that little cotton-topped old lady in
“AIRPORT” ( 1970 ) ( How the heck tall IS she, anway?! ) OR maybe it was my shallow soul ((
)) and Hayes not having enough Oomph to attract my attention.
My silly biases have disappeared watching Hayes play Catherine Barkley, the Nurse in this love story. I thought she was very subtle and acting; probably moreso than my pre-code faves: Harding & Shearer. She’s as cute as a button and though she doesn’t have the, shall we say “sensual bling” of Bow, Harlow or Louise Brooks,
still waters
do run very deep. You might remember that.
I want to say “A Farewell to Arms” is equal parts
Gary Cooper’s and Hayes’ performances. No doubt he
is a tall quenching glass of water, but in general I feel Hayes acts rings around Cooper’s halting/hesitant/stilted delivery; so I lean in towards her. Maybe it's more fair to say this is equal parts Catherine’s
and the lieutenant’s: ( Fredric’s ), story.
Bedside Manner: Florence Nightingale never covered THIS in the Nurses Manual
Catherine’s a little more interesting for me to watch. She represents those young women a decade-plus into the 20th century’s beginnings who will bob their hair, seek The Vote and want just a touch more autonomy in their lives ( though still a million and a half light years from burning their bras. ) She’s left her small-town and is out in the big wide world at large. She leaves her provincial thinking back home. She’s mending and healing the war’s broken bodies. No, it’s not a pre-requisite to throw caution to the wind; but it’s something she questions as she speaks of her dead fiancee:
“If I had to do it all over again, I’d marry him. Or... anything.” It’s those ‘or anythings’ that’ll get you every time, girls.
And like Cinderella, the ambulance driver and the nurse meet “cute”...during an air raid ((
)) - Fredric with a veritable “slipper” in his hand.
Miss, may I show you something in a Size 3?
When next they meet, the Lt. steals the nurse from his buddy, Major Rinaldi ( played by
Adolphe Menjou ) who had his "eyes" on her first. Neither of their intentions were quite honorable toward Nurse Catherine. But Fredric wins out. The Lt.’s gentle, insistent, full court press muffles the cries of protest from Catherine. Resistance is futile. ( Resist... really? It’s Gary Cooper for cornsakes... and besides, there’s a war going on; it’s practically her patriotic duty. ) Afterwards, Fredric is concerned about her...
“afterwards”, but Catherine is surprisingly resigned to having given up the "coin of the realm".
He seems more concerned than
she though I think she feigns her carpe-diem attitude. ( But note, his concern comes “after.” ) Sent to the front, he drives his ambulance BACK to see her to make sure she understands that this was not a mere one-nite stand. It’s his coming
back to her that I think their emotional tale starts.
They both have BFF’s that are adamantly opposed to their relationships.
The Lieutenant and the Major: Girls don't care about rank at a
time like this. They're ours for the taking!
When I first saw Adolphe Menjou as the Italian Major head doctor, I scratched my head. Huh??? Wha’?? What in the name of Central Casting is this? But I must say he
did grow on me by the end of the movie even with his phony baloney Italian accent. And I loved how he called Fredric “bebe.” Rinaldi can’t believe he’s losing his ol’ running buddy to love. Then he tries to cheapen her in Fredric’s eyes but the lieutenant will have none of that. He's instrumental in separating the lovers, too. Sheesh, with friends like this... He later comes to understand that their love is real and deep. Catherine’s good friend is fellow nurse Ferguson ( played by Bogie’s ex-wife
Mary Philips. ) She seems so stuck up from the get-go.
She’s also deeply opposed to this relationship, but even more vehemently. ( When Fredric looks for Catherine later in the film, Fergie is of no help at all. Can’t she see that he came back for Catherine? Ack! ) I don’t think the reason's because she’s sitting on the sidelines while “hook-ups” are happening all around her or that she fears Catherine would, inevitably, “get into trouble.” My impression was that she felt more for her friend than admitted.
It’s interesting to see Catherine and Fredric travel their individual paths on that same road of love. We do see they’re in love and that they take it seriously, spiritually enough to accept the Priest’s ceremonial words on their behalf. The priest is played by
Jack LaRue. JACK LARUE?! A priest? Well I'll be...he sandwiched this goody goody role in between “Three On A Match” and “The Story of Temple Drake” where he is a ravaging brute. He’ll come clean again in “Captains Courageous” though there will be those orchids for Miss Blandish about ten years later.
...is such sweet sorrow, and how the heck tall ARE you?
Catherine and Fredric are sweet and loving and tender to each other - friends and conventions be damned. They’re so cute together. And when they have to part, even if Fredric has only twenty minutes before train time, he spends it with her. They live a lifetime in their little room. They live a lifetime in each other’s company.
“I wish we could do something sinful. Eveything we do is simple and right.” Maybe. But these two crazy kids are going to pay for that. How could loving each other be sinful? Beats me. And in
whose eyes? ACK! Beats me. But they’re going to pay a terrrrible price for not seeing what they are doing
is ( considered ) sinful. She is pregnant. One of the Hayes moments I really enjoyed was her merely reading aloud a letter she writes him. She paints a beautiful picture of a house she’s rented, while Borzage reveals her voice-over, over a squalid little room. Hayes reads the letter so matter-of-factly without the least bit of an actress-y hint that she’s already memorized what she’s supposed to be reading, that that small moment caught me. It’s a small thing I know, but it showed something to me of Hayes’ gift. As Catherine, she’s going to rough it alone, have their baby and be waiting for him when he comes back from the front. When she finds out her letters have never even reached him...
And the lieutenant. He’s worried about not hearing from her. He knows something’s wrong. What initially started out as just a conquest, quickly turned into love for him. And truth be told, it turns out to be more than just love. It’s some kind of symbiotic oneness they've achieved with each other. That Fredric risks everything to leave his post to go back to her was astounding to me. He was like,
“I’m leaving the Army and I’m going home.” Huh? What the... Yup, he was just going to leave and go home. See, this is the SECOND time he’s going back to her; he doesn’t care how far away he is away from her...he has to get back to her. Simple. And that just plain kills me. Today when girls are wondering why he hasn’t called, texted or FaceBook’d her, here we have the Lieutenant going through battle, in the opposite direction of the way everyone was traveling just to get back to her...
Please don't die.
Of course it’s too late. ( That’s what makes this a tragedy. ) And here is where IMHO Gary Cooper shines. The grief. The praying against all hope that his little prayer would be answered in that big wide war-crazed world. A simple request; that she not die. I was stunned by his tears and the unseeing look in his eyes as he ate his bread. I can’t say really that Cooper touched me like this for the rest of his career.
Forget Heathcliff. Forget Armand Duval. Guys, I wanted a happy ending so badly here, it hurt. My throat was burning. But Fate and Hemingway was not on the side of these two kids.
But it doesn't really matter where I live. Because I don't really live
at all when I'm not with you.