Product Details

• Region: All Regions
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000JWNOTI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,920 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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3.0 out of 5 stars "Any Man's death diminishes me", April 8, 2007

By	bernie "xyzzy" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"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) and against nationalists. He also had a dislike for Germans and Italians. His assignment was to go behind the nationalist lines and 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 and that barely escaped a train ride. They naturally fall 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 cannot tell if they are the good guys or the bad guys. The two that stand out besides the hero and his girl are Katina Paxinou (sort of a female Antony Quinn) as the doyenne, and Akim Tamiroff as the once good guerilla who may be bad or just self-centered. Who they were and how they 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 and took 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.