"For Whom The Bell Tolls"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 315, 6 July 1945, Page 19

"For Whom The Bell Tolls"

(Paramount)

|? appears that, even at this late stage, "appeasement" is still Hollywood’ s attitude towards Spain and the Spanish Civil War. This long-

awaited film contains several good performances and at least one great one, it has magnificent scenery and photography, some moments of real excitement and suspense, and some genuine chunks of Hemingway dialogue. In fact, it has almost everything that the book had-except the essential spirit of the thing. True, you will hear a reference to German and Italian planes, and a speech in which the local struggle is described as being a rehearsal for something much bigger. But in its vital parts the story has been de-gutted, and Ernest Hemingway’s white-hot anger against the Spanish Fascists and _ his ardent, though not uncritical support for the Republicans-which were the book’s chief reasons for being — have been allowed to burn themselves almost right out among the pieces of film that were left on the cutting-room floor after Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount, had decided that his company was "not for or against anybody" and that the picture should be "without political significance," As for the sense of international kinship implicit in John Donne’s words which give the story its title, that has disappeared almost completely. The result of thus diminishing the ideological aspect is, of course, to emphasise the love-story, as played with commendable charm and discretion by Gary Cooper and, particularly, Ingrid Bergman. Thousands of picturegoers will not object to what has been done; they will, in fact, prefer it that way. And it is not quite fair to dismiss the story (as one critic did) as simply "Boy meets Girl in Spanish Civil War." The circumstances of the romance are not as

wholly irrelevant as that judgment suggests: though it is not the earth-shaking affair that we had been led to expect, it nevertheless has poignancy and some intensity of passion, and the sleepingbag situation has been handled with more honesty than I expected the Hays Office would allow. au * % [OWEVER, it is broadly true that the love-making and the fighting might, for all the essential difference it would make to the film, be taking place in almost any war in almost any country, or even, as the director (Sam Wood) himself said, "on the other side’ of the Spanish conflict. To many picturegoers this may not appear important, for the film has taken too long to reach us to be topical, and the Spanish trouble already seems a very long way off these days. It may well be the case also that, in the cosmic scale, this particular war was essentially the same as any other war. But Ernest Hemingway did not think so. To him, and to thousands who read his book, it was important that this was the Spanish Civil War he was writing about, and it was specially important that he was writing about it from the anti-Franco side. The significant thing about Hemingway’s novel was just the very fact that it did have "political significance": partisanship gave the story its power, gave meaning and tension to the violent hatreds and loyalties of the guerilla characters, and raised the fierce and hungry romance of Jordan and Maria to a level above the humdrum. Hemingway may not be a great artist, but he believed passionately in what he was saying, and I think he was entitled either to have his sincerity treated with more respect by Hollywood or else to be left alone. Of course, if he linda himself a party to this watering-down when he accepted a handsome fee for the screen rights he has only himself to blame, but that does not completely exonerate the studio for doing it. The conclusion thus arrived at may be disheartening, but I think it is unavoidable: that, on the great issues of our day, the cinema is still without real convictions-and it is questionable whether art in. any form can exist without convictions of some sort, whether see4 be ro or wrong. Fe * EVEN if you ee agree with all this-and of ‘course you may not -I would still recommend you to see For Whom the Bell Tolls. For if you don’t, you will miss something that alone makes the production worth while, and justifies the grading I have given itthe performance of Katina Paxinou as Pilar, the peasant woman. Within the ideological limitations of the script, Ingrid Bergman proves refreshingly different from the usual Hollywood star and. handles the difficult role of Maria with finesse; Gary Cooper is typically himself and therefore well suited to play Jordan: (Hemingway might have had Cooper in mind when he drew the character); as Anselmo, Vladimir Sokoloff has some memorable moments; and Akim Tamiroff is even better as Pablo, the deposed leader of the guerillas. But the overshadowing performance of the film is that of Mme, Paxinou (a Greek actress), as the coarse and compassionate Pilar. She dwarfs all the — in the cast with her vitality, ~~ gedness, and her warmth of feeling. anyone rings The Bell, she does.