Gary Cooper is too wooden and detached in this performance. It may have worked for Wyatt Earp, but his stone face makes you wonder what Maria could possibly have seen in him.
I read the book, which is far more subtle than the movie. What I find particularly missing is Robert Jordan's passion for Spain. It is because of his love for the Spanish people that he fights for the Republic. I do not see any of this passion in Cooper's performance.
How could they possibly do this movie, and omit its most famous line? "Did the earth move for you?" A universal synonym for doing the diddly. I guess they were very puritanical in those days.
The movie does a good job of depicting the incompetence of the Republican hierarchy, and why they lost the war.
I have read a fair amount about the Spanish Civil War. Why did the West stand aside and allow these atrocities to happen? Hemingway's novel graphically illustrates the dilemma: on one hand you have the Republic, socialists, communists, Anarchists, Russians and Stalin. On the other hand you have the Nationalists, Fascists, Franco and Hitler. Talk about the pot and the fire.
I read the book, which is far more subtle than the movie. What I find particularly missing is Robert Jordan's passion for Spain. It is because of his love for the Spanish people that he fights for the Republic. I do not see any of this passion in Cooper's performance.
How could they possibly do this movie, and omit its most famous line? "Did the earth move for you?" A universal synonym for doing the diddly. I guess they were very puritanical in those days.
The movie does a good job of depicting the incompetence of the Republican hierarchy, and why they lost the war.
I have read a fair amount about the Spanish Civil War. Why did the West stand aside and allow these atrocities to happen? Hemingway's novel graphically illustrates the dilemma: on one hand you have the Republic, socialists, communists, Anarchists, Russians and Stalin. On the other hand you have the Nationalists, Fascists, Franco and Hitler. Talk about the pot and the fire.