[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]
Connection to Speedy: Same Studio (Paramount)
Premise: A war and a jealous suitor keep an American ambulance driver and an English nurse apart.
I’ll admit that this is a weak connection between two movies. Believe me. I tried to find a better one. Unfortunately, I added too many stipulations on how I choose movies to connect. No rewatches. Only streaming services that I have access to (Amazon, HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple, AMC+, Showtime, Peacock, Paramount+). No renting. Maximum of 5 years between films. Sure, that’s easy in 2008 but not 1928. Connecting Speedy to A Farewell to Arms is still useful though. It’s interesting to highlight just how much the studios had changed in 4 years.
I’ve seen some changes in movies in my lifetime. The 3-D boom. The shift to digital. The rise of CGI. Streaming cutting into both theater and movie channel business. I’ve never gone through something as swift and monumental at “talkies” though. I doubt it was as overnight as films and shows make it out to be now. Every silent film wasn’t kicked out of theaters the day The Jazz Singer premiered. It’s not fiction that some people saw it as a fad, although I must imagine that most people saw it as an inevitability. They just didn’t realize how hard the transition would be from producing silent films to “talkies”.
A Farewell to Arms feels like a relatively early era “talkie”. They’ve figured a lot out in a short time. The sound mixing and levels are fine. There isn’t much ambiance though. Compared to Speedy, admittedly a very different kind of movie, A Farewell to Arms often feels inert. And this is considered some of the best of 1932. It won the cinematography and sound Oscars that year. I worry about the step back of less accomplished films of that year. I can understand wanting to see the latest Chaplin over a 2nd-rate studio offering where they still hadn’t figured out where to put the microphone.
It’s interesting to think about this movie like Gone Girl when that film came out. A Farewell to Arms wasn’t a classic in 1932. It was a recent best seller from 1929. This is a fast turnaround time for an adaptation. Gary Cooper is pretty good in it, as is Helen Hayes. The pacing is off throughout. I barely had any time to appreciate their love story before they were torn apart. It was technically a pre-Code movie but I could feel the censors on it; even if those censors were the writers/director/producers afraid to get too risqué.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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