A Farewell to Arms (Hollywood Classics) (1932)

First off, I want to make clear that, despite what the Amazon product description for this DVD presently (on 2/27/13) indicates, this movie, in this DVD release, is 89 mins. in length, not 80. I notified Amazon of the error a short while ago, so hopefully the correction will be reflected soon.Secondly, I wish to COMPLETELY disagree with the product review posted by BAILADORA FINA on 1/7/13. I own a KINO DVD of "A Farewell to Arms". KINO released this movie as a new HD master, NOT as a restoration. Master means a best-possible straight HD reproduction from the best available picture and audio elements. A restoration, on the other hand, is when imperfections in picture and sound are corrected, as well as is reasonably possible.As a new HD master, I consider this KINO DVD to be excellent, with overall clear, clean picture and sound, and with nicely balanced greyscale contrast.I realize there is a conspicuous editing jump in one place, that makes it clear some footage was snipped out at some long-ago point. (You can tell as the scene begins with Catherine's mouth finishing moving from saying something before her continuing dialog begins.) Also, there are some inconsequential instances, throughout the film, where a fraction-of-a-split-second frame or two missing is just barely evident. Those issues reflect the form the reproduced old original film copy is in. As KINO's release is a new straight HD master "from an original nitrate 35mm print, preserved by the George Eastman House Motion Picture Department," we're getting the best possible as-is reproduction of THAT copy. The KINO DVD offers clear, well-balanced, flutter-free, entirely agreeable image and sound quality, that I, for one, am fully satisfied with.This is an 80 year old movie (most of what I especially enjoy watching, and collecting, where movies are concerned, is Silent through Pre-Code movies, of which I own dozens of such on typically expensive DVD releases [Criterion, KINO, TCM Archives, Warner Archive, MGM Premiere, etc.], and I have high, but realistic, standards and expectations regarding reproduction quality, and this release compares favourably, and very nicely, with other excellent new straight digital masterings I have of movies of similar vintage). I find BAILADORA's review to not at all accurately represent the fine quality of this DVD. The KINO release easily offers the best digital reproduction, on DVD, of this movie currently available. No way can it be accurately said that this DVD's "visuals are...substandard and so is the sound." I heartily disagree with that mystifying statement by BAILADORA. For an 80 year old movie that hasn't had any restoration work done to it (that's in overall great condition, regardless), this DVD offers excellent reproduction quality, with no significant shortcomings regarding either picture or sound. Yes: There are some slight visual imperfections, here and there, regarding minor specks, scratches, upper-right-corner reel-change indicator flashes, and that type of thing, but nothing that at all intrudes upon or detracts from the viewing experience; it's the usual type visual issues that any well-seasoned frequent viewer of Pre-Code era movies knows routinely comes with the territory (except with movies that have gotten actual restorations and had those type issues eliminated or minimized). I think the job KINO has done creating the beautiful new HD digital master is commendable, and that it'll satisfy and please anyone wanting to own a high quality, easy to view and hear copy of the movie.It appears to me that this is the very copy of "A Farewell to Arms" that TCM airs, as, to my eyes and ears, everything looked and sounded identical when I recently viewed the movie on TCM, then viewed it again, less than a week later, via my KINO DVD, and was unable to observe any differences whatsoever.

Frank Borsage's 1931 film version of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" can never have the power of the novel's prose, and its not-quite-so-simple romantic idyll. I first saw the film as a twelve-year old in 1931, when it was released; but I've reread the novel many times, and have seen the film twice in recent years. I am a veteran of World War II and a retired professor of literature. So I can now see AFTA through the eyes and sensibilities of a hopefully more seasoned, if not cynical, old man. In '31, I was too young to "get" the implications of war's tragedy (even though my boyhood was saturated with stories and films about "the Great War"--"All Quiet on the Western Front--the novel & the film--What Price Glory--the play & the film--the 1927 Seventh Heaven with Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor co-starring, too young--in that earlier age of innocence--to know how babies were made). Now I am touched by Frederick Henry's (not-so)"innocent" affair with Nurse Cathrine Barkley, touched by its initial idyllic quality. But in 1931, I had not read AFTA. Hardly! Or if read would I have understood it. But decades later, I can now see the lacunae, the holes & telescopings and elidings of vital scenes in the novel, one being the couple's "alpine idyll" above Montreux, Switzerland, the row across the lake to Switzerland (which Catherine shares, but not in the film), and which may have contributed to the complications of her baby's still-birth and her own death by loss of blood. Finally, that silly Hollywood ending, with Cooper (an otherwise good performance considering the pre-Method time)picking up Catherine from her (death) bed, murmuringm "Peace! Peace!" to the skies beyond the open window,as bells toll the war's end. Too much, what follows and ends the film--those doves fluttering across that sky. I can now see why Hem was so disgusted at the film. Had it ended in the way the novel ends, we would have had a more powerful and dramatic fadeout, with Frerick Henry walking out of the hospital and back to his hotel through the rain, the rain a dominant motif that runs through the film and the novel, his mourning, his loneliness far into the rest of his life (as Hemingway himself was haunted by the real-life "Catherine," Red Cross nurse Agnes Von Kurowsky). For those many non-readers "in our time," the 1931 film, or its successors, would be salutary--if it motivates them to go to the novel...which no film can ever match.

The original (1932) film is brought to DVD rather well. Story, by Hemingway, is kept in tact; slight change at the end.

This is not a review of the film itself, but rather an observation. It appears that the film has been shortened by several minutes. I recall watching this the first two times that during Cooper's monologue about architecture in the bar scene at the beginning of the film, the girl, whose foot and shoe were being used as examples to explain the origins of the arch, giggled several times. This is now missing from the film. This begs the question what else was edited out? And for what reason?Upon further investigation it appears that the 89 minute version is now the 78 minute version (source TCM)‘A Farewell to Arms’ originally ran 89 minutes, and was later cut to 78 minutes for a 1938 re-issue. The 89-minute version (unseen since the original theatrical run in 1932 and long thought to be lost) was released on DVD in 1999 by Image Entertainment, mastered from a nitrate print located in the David O. Selznick vaults."

I was not very hopeful when I ordered the BFI edition, having had a really atrocious DVD (still available from Amazon).This BFI edition was restored by Lobster Films of France from the archives of David O. Selznik. It looks almost pristine! What a beautiful man Gary Cooper at 31 was! Must have for Cooper fans. Two days after viewing this BD, I viewed the latest BD of Roman Holiday which was not impressive at all and I can say that this 20-years-older film does not look any inferior!I don't much like the book. The characterization of Catherine is skin-deep: Scottish, blond, very beautiful, narrow in the hips. That's all Hemingway gave. He omits entirely how she got the bun in the oven. The film did not shirk (discreetly in 1931 manner) from showing how. Regrettably what Fredrick did, by today's standard, amounts to a rape. What made me withhold one star is the rascally part Captain Rinaldi was made to play.Helen Hayes was charming, I wish she tried sounding like Scottish or at least English, but in those days American actors played British characters with their accent intact.

I would have to agree with Michael Bo and other reviewers that this product is pretty low grade. As for the film itself: I too find the ending over laden with the "Liebestod" from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde". Let the acting and the circumstances speak for themselves has always been my approach to drama. Those of us with musician's ears are at a disadvantage, that I acknowledge, but all I am asking for is balance.

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I like this movie.

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