Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 46: A Farewell to LoveFilm

This is kind of the day I'm on my own a little bit as this is finally the day that I watch the last film delivered by LoveFilm DVD and have to wait till the next decade, in which most of the films will be delivered by them, to use them again. The last DVD from my rental list for now is another one by Frank Borzage, A Farewell to Arms.

Again Borzage is focusing on World War One, but this time following the relationship between an American ambulance driver, Gary Cooper's Frederick, who serves in the American army and a Scottish nurse played by Helen Hayes. Just like in Seventh Heaven, war separates the lovers as a jealous Italian general dispatches Frederick into Milan far away from Hayes' Catherine however they are soon reunited when it is organised to have him transferred to the hospital where she works after an injury. Up to this point in the film I thought the action totted along nicely, the war scenes weren't as impressively filmed as in Seventh Heaven but the characters seemed a lot more realistic. However I had trouble in the final section of the film in which a pregnant Catherine sits writing letters to Frederick who never gets them because they are held up by the Swiss censors. I found at the end of the film that it all lapsed slowly into melodrama as Catherine started to despair for her lost love. At the end of course Frederick returns just to witness Catherine's death at childbirth, the child not surviving either which I thought made the film end on a low ebb.

The acting itself was fine enough, again I'm not convinced by Gary Cooper as an actor I find him a little brusque and unprofessional although the role didn't demand as much of him as Mr Deeds Goes to Town. Helen Hayes, whose name is above Cooper's in the credits, is another in a long line of strong women in these films however the second half of the film sees her become more weak and dependant on Frederick, a couple of the supporting performers were also excellent notably Adolphe Menjoy as the jealous Major Rinaldi. Unsurprisingly the film didn't get any acting nominations but it did gets some nods on the technical side of things winning awards for both cinematography and sound and being nominated for art direction. However it didn't have a chance against that year's winner the interesting and multi-layered Cavalcade, I think it should be a film that was glad to be nominated. Now comes the time though were I must concentrate on Youtubing the hell out of the rest of the films on the list.