Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Iseerphia All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

madbeast I am no fan of Ernest Hemingway, finding most of his work to be overwritten macho wish fulfillment, so take this with a grain of salt if you're a Poppa addict. But I found the film to be an overlong bore centering around a leaden Gary Cooper (playing the clichéd embodiment of Hollywood's idea of a romantic soldier of fortune) and a ludicrously miscast blonde Swede Ingrid Bergman as a Spanish freedom fighter. Like most of the movie, Bergman is distractingly gorgeous and the filmmakers' choice to shoot it in opulent Technicolor often undercuts the dramatic weight of the story.Far more convincing than the two leads are Katina Paxnou (who richly deserved the Oscar she won) and Akim Tamiroff as characters grounded with human flaws and inconsistencies that make them compelling, as opposed to the stupefyingly boring Cooper and Bergman, whose only interest comes from the undeniable sexual chemistry that they project. It might have been a perfectly unobjectionable little 1940s adventure film were it not for a script that takes two hours and forty-five minutes to tell a story that frankly isn't very interesting to begin with.Things finally do start to rev up in the second half when the handsome and heroic Cooper finally starts to play out the manly mission that threw him in the midst of the freedom fighters to begin with, but up to then I found my patience weighed down by Cooper and Bergman making goo-goo eyes at each other while Paxnou/Tamiroff & Company bicker amongst one another, often using Hemingway's flowery prose for dialogue that is completely out of step with their characters.If you're an advocate of Hemingway's brand of ultra-masculine romanticism you should probably disregard this review. But if you're a more objective viewer, while the film certainly has its positive aspects (usually when Paxnou or Tamiroff is on the screen), be prepared to mouth the word "overrated" after sitting through its lengthy run-time.

jhkp This is a fine film, very popular in its day for depicting the desperate fight for freedom that even civilians engaged in by choice, at a time when democracy was in fact truly threatened and there was a very real possibility it would disappear from the earth. Because of the bravery of so many men and women of that time, the freedom that many today take for granted was assured. But it is by no means permanent.The film is relatively heavy but certainly many modern films about current events are equally heavy. One is either involved or not but I found it a great story of a small group of people who have survived a great deal of pain in life and who have little to lose. The film presents the characters very well, allowing us to like and understand them. It was shot in Technicolor on realistic locations and beautifully designed by William Cameron Menzies. The music by Victor Young is outstanding.In case anyone may not know, Ingrid Bergman was the choice of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, he went out of his way to see to it that the ballet dancer and actress Vera Zorina, who was originally cast and who had begun shooting the film, was replaced by Bergman. Hemingway also wanted Gary Cooper and no one else to play Robert Jordan. How can these actors be 'miscast' when the author who created the characters felt they were perfect for the roles?

zardoz-13 Although Ernst Hemingway chose Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper as the leads in director Sam Wood's cinematic adaptation of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," the novelist hated the movie because the repressive Hollywood Production Code Administration made Paramount Pictures excise virtually all of the political content of "Stagecoach" scenarist Dudley Nichols' script. Indeed, what the Production Code did was to remove anything derogatory about General Franco's regime, ruling in Spain at that point, that Cooper and his Nationalist resistance compatriots sought to defeat. This was certainly not the first movie that had its plot eviscerated. The 1938 Spanish Civil War movie "Blockade" with Henry Fonda has suffered a similar fate. It was obvious which side was right and which side was wrong, but the Code prevented them from identifying them by name."For Whom the Bell Tolls" takes place in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War as the protagonist, American teacher-turned-Republican soldier Robert Jordan, blasts a Nationalist troop train to smithereens. Enemy soldiers swarm after Jordan (Gary Cooper of "Sergeant York") and his friend Kashkin (Feodor Fedorovich Chaliapin Jr. of "Mission to Moscow") and wound the latter. Kashkin holds Jordan to his promise to kill him because he refuses be captured. Nobody wants to fall into the savage hands of the Republicans. This form of mercy killing is a rule of thumb among the Republican. Nevertheless, Jordan hates having to kill Kaskhin and calls it "murder." Meantime, Jordan escapes to Madrid to rendezvous with Republican General Golz (Leo Bulgakov of "This Land is Mine") briefs him on a new mission to dynamite an important bridge at the same time that the Republicans launch a surprise air assault. Jordan has three days to prepare. An older Spanish guide Anselmo (Vladimir Sokoloff of "Scarlet Street") leads our hero to the bridge spanning a gorge and then escorts him to a Nationalist outpost in a mountain cave not far from the structure. A small band of guerrilla fighters and Gypsy refugees take orders from Pablo (Akim Tamiroff of "Union Pacific") and his fire breathing wife Pilar. According to his wife, Pablo has lost his nerve and she supervises their exploits. Pilar (Katina Paxinou of "Confidential Agent") has nothing but contempt for her cowardly drunkard of a husband. Robert conceals the explosive in the cave and gets to know his new companions, among them a carefree gypsy Rafael (Mikhail Rasumny of "Comrade X"); Primitivo (Victor Varconi of "Strange Cargo"); Andres (Eric Feldary of "Cloak and Dagger"), Fernando (Fortunio Bonanova of "Citizen Kane"), and young Maria, (Ingrid Bergman of "Casablanca"), a Spanish refugee that the Nationalists raped after they shot her parents. Palo and his men rescued Maria from a prison train. Robert needs Pablo's assistance to blow up the bridge. Pablo, worried about a Nationalist reprisal, gives Jordan the cold shoulder. Meanwhile, Pilar warns Jordan that Pablo cannot be trusted. Pablo is not happy since Pilar has assumed command of his men and behaves in a suspicious manner. Later, Fernando reveals that he left camp to be with his wife in the city. He eavesdropped on loquacious Nationalists chatting about gossip of a possible Republican attack on the bridge. Pilar, Maria and Robert climb through the mountains to meet the rebel El Sordo (Joseph Calleia of "The Gorilla"), a renegade gypsy, who agrees to steal the horses they need to escape after the bridge is destroyed. Gradually, over a three day interval, Jordan and Maria become lovers. Eventually, Maria tells him that the Nationalist soldier abused her. Mind you, Nichols could not use the word 'rape' in 1943, and Jordan doesn't want to hear about the details. A snowstorm has everybody worried that Nationalist patrols may spot the tracks of El Sordo's stolen horses and follow them to the cave. Pablo's drunken behavior prompts the others send him into exile. After Pablo's departure, Pilar reveals that Pablo has not always yellow. When the war began, Pablo proved himself a courageous leader. Organizing the citizens against a Nationalist attack, Pablo helped save their town. He blew up the wall around the city hall where the Nationalists had been cornered and decided not to give up. Pablo forced these city officials to face the wrath of the citizens. These men brave a gauntlet before the enraged citizens hurl them off a high cliff to their deaths. The savagery of his countrymen sickens Pablo and refuses to participate in the fighting. Later, Pablo shows up at the cave with a change of heart and agrees to support Jordan's mission to blow the bridge. The next day, Robert has to shoot a Nationalist cavalryman who rides too close to the cave. A patrol rides up and El Sordo's gang diverts them from Jordan and company. El Sordo and his men take refuge in a mountain outpost and fight until fighter planes wipe them out. Meanwhile, the treacherous Pablo sabotages Jordan's equipment. Anselmo warns Jordan that Nationalist troops are fortifying the bridge. Robert fears that the Nationalists know of the Republican surprise attack. He dispatches Andres on a hopeless mission behind enemy lines with a message for Golz to cancel the offensive. During the night, Jordan and Maria make love. Before dawn, Pilar uncovers Pablo's treachery, and Robert rigs up make-shift detonators from hand grenade. As Jordan is placing the dynamite, a Nationalist armored column trundles into view. The bridge is destroyed, but Anselmo dies in the blast. As Jordan and company escape, the soldiers open fire and a shell knocks Jordan off his horse and he breaks his leg. Jordan convinces Maria to leave with Pillar and Pablo and dies when the soldiers rush him.Director Sam Wood paces the action so that he can tell several stories at once and he generates considerable suspense and tension in the final quarter hour of this epic. The legendary production designer William Cameron Menzies created the fake bridge over the gorge. Composer Victor Young's score is wonderfully evocative.

Robert J. Maxwell Among the cast which, in the novel consists of one American idealist and the rest Spanish guerrillas in the Civil War of 1937, I counted two actors actually born in Spain, one Mexican, one half-Cuban, a Yugoslavian, a Swede, two Greeks, two Hungarians, one Maltese, a Siciliano, and the rest Russian. Oh, and Gary Cooper.Hollywood in the 1940s was never particular about these niceties. A foreign accent was a foreign accent. In many of the movies of the period, a British accent would serve for Axis spies.But who cares, right? This is Hemingway after all and old Ernie can overcome this kind of wanton casting. Except that Hemingway was always difficult to transpose to film. His best passages -- those pebbles in the clear stream; the frozen carcass of the leopard on Mount Kilmanjaro -- tended to be descriptive. His dialog, sometime very funny, could also be very purple, ultra violet even, and those seemed to be the particular pieces of dialog that appealed to writers and producers. Here we're stuck with Ingrid Bergman's first kiss. "Where do the noses go?" And that long, incomprehensible explanation by Gary Cooper of why Bergman must leave him and his broken leg behind to provide a rear guard for the others. "If you go, we both go. Go and we go together. But if you stay, we don't go, so we don't go together." (Something like that.) At least he doesn't say, "Forget about me. Save yourselves." And we're also spared, from the novel, the observation that when Cooper and Bergman have sex, "the earth moved." Hemingway had a fable about dealing with Hollywood. You drive up to the California border. The producers are on the other side. You throw them the manuscript and they throw you the check. Then you drive away fast.The movie is really constructed in four acts. I: Gary Cooper, the ex prof, is introduced to the dozen or so guerrilla fighters hiding out and slowly rotting in the mountains. II. Cooper romances Bergman. III. El Sordo (Joseph Calleia, the Maltese) is trapped on a mountain top and dies fighting Franco's troops and airplanes. IV. Cooper and his companeros blow a bridge and some of them are killed, including Cooper.The locations were shot in the beautiful crisp air and granite rocks and evergreens of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The outdoor imagery is very impressive. Most of the scenes are shot in a damp, dark cave that looks studio-built. The robust and ugly Katina Paxinou livens up these scenes and it's a good thing because most of the dynamics are a little gloomy. Akim Tamiroff, in a dramatic part, is half coward, half burnt-out revolutionary. Some of his grimmer lines are, in context, almost funny, what with his echt-Russian accent. Sullen and resentful, his face painted a ghoulish green, Tamiroff swills down wine and insults people at random until people punch and slap him and threaten to kill him. His mantra is smothered in sour cream and mushrooms and cabbage soup -- "I doan prowoke." Cooper is pretty good. He's handsome and virile; he manages to activate both facial expressions, and it fits the part. And Ingrid Bergman is nicely tanned considering that she's just spent a winter in the icy mountains of Spain. Her short haircut detracts not at all from her fresh beauty. She glows with her love for Cooper. At one point the script has her become hysterical as her lover rides off to battle. "Oh, please bring him back safely. Please. I big you. I will do anything you say!", and she buries her sobbing face against the neck of an indifferent horse. I wonder if the writers deliberately tried to torpedo what virtues were found in the novel.The film, like the novel, takes sides. Well -- it HAS to. Who, in 1943, was going to give a break to Hitler and Mussolini? But the Republican side doesn't come off as exactly saintly. When they take over a town they drunkenly torture and kill anyone who was linked to the loyalists. It's a horrifying scene, a flashback narrated by Paxinou. Overall, a film with considerable impact, even today.