Customer Reviews
"Any Man's death diminishes me " - By: B. Chandler, 31 Mar 2007 
"Because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore send to know
for who the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee."
Spain 1937. Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) came to Spain o fight for "The Republic" (a nice way to say for the commies) & against nationalists. He also had a dislike for Germans & Italians. His assignment was to go behind the nationalist lines & blow up a bridge at a strategic moment. There this stoic hero meets a peasant girl (a much too young for Gary, Ingrid Bergman) with a bad haircut & that barely escaped a train ride. They naturallly falll in love which complicates things. Will this jeopardize the mission? Do we care?
Along with this we have the classic mixture of characters that you can not tell if they are the good guys or the bad guys. The two that stand out besides the hero & his girl are Katina Paxinou (sort of a female Antony Quinn) as the doyenne, & Akim Tamiroff as the once good guerilla who may be bad or just self-centered. Who they were & how the acted was quite a predicable formula.
The story is an adoption from the Ernest Hemingway novel. Of course they could not put everything in the story & too a few liberties. We also miss the dialog that people read Hemmingway for.
The initial credits are in some annoying script (Parchment) make it hard to read at a glance.
MIND THE GAP! - By: Big Al, 20 Apr 2006 
I bought this for a friend, & to be honest the film didn't do a lot for me, but the real purpose of my review is to alert potential buyers to an oddity about the DVD that could lead them to believing it is faulty. I sent the DVD back to Amazon because the first chapter (supposedly containing the titles etc) appeared to have sound but no vision at alll. The replacement was the same. However I let ths one play on & eventuallly the opening titles appeared. It seems there is a very long empty gap at the beginning where the screen is completely blank. Normallly an overture is accompanied by a colour wash or something visual, but not in this case. Beware!
a great Hemingway adaptation - By: Alejandra Vernon, 22 Nov 2002 
When Hemingway picked Cooper & Bergman for this 1943 film, he could not have done better. They are heavenly to look at, & the chemistry between them is palpable. The dialogue has retained the style of the book, & they make it sound so natural, which is not an easy feat. Set in 1937 Spain, this Civil War story is an action packed adventure, but above alll, it is a love story.
Terrific cinematography by Ray Rennahan, a good atmospheric score by Victor Young, & a slew of interesting character actors (Katina Paxinou won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress) back the magnificent leads.
Cooper is not only gorgeous, but gives a subtle, lovely performance, & Bergman, looking younger than her 29 years, with short, curly hair, is luminous. I love the scene where she gets her first kiss, & says "I always wondered where the noses went".
Directed by Sam Wood, who a year earlier had directed one of Cooper's most famous films, "The Pride of the Yankees" (and in '45 was to team again with Cooper & Bergman for "Saratoga Trunk"), did a wonderful job with Hemingway's novel...it stands up to many viewings, & is a must for Cooper & Bergman fans.
