Perhaps this story (by Hemingway) just doesn't work on the big screen. I tried the Gary Cooper - Helen Hayes version, but didn't find that done well enough to make it all the way through the film. I slogged all the way through this version for only one reason -- I admire the work of David O. Selznick. Beginning with 1935's "A Tale Of Two Cities", there wasn't much that Selznick did that wasn't impressive. But, with 1949's "The Third Man", things began going downhill, and certainly was at a nadir with this film.Selznick made some accomplishments here. Better than most films, I felt this movie showed the horrors of war. Many of the on-location settings are stunning. And, there is at least one top notch performance here -- that of Vittorio De Sica. And, Rock Hudson does well.But there are problems. Perhaps the biggest problem is Jennifer Jones. Until this film, I never saw the attraction. And after this film...I still don't see the attraction. With some other actress, perhaps I could have done more than simply tolerate this film.The other problem with the television broadcast of this film is that the movie is badly in need of restoration. The picture is downright fuzzy.Books and films are two very different mediums. A film producer or director has to tell a story in a very different way than does an author. One has several hundred pages to tell a story. The other has usually about 2 hours to tell the same story. But just maybe this story doesn't work on film. At least in my 2 experiences it hasn't.

Many critics didn't like this movie when it was first released and still don't if reviews on IMDb are anything to go by. I think that many films, especially from the late 50's and early 60's, took a critical hammering at the time because they seemed old-fashioned in the light of the great changes in cinema that were just starting. But now, over 50 years later, a film such as "A Farewell to Arms" can be evaluated more dispassionately, and as the film is actually set 40 years before it was made, it is now relatively free of the baggage of 1957 and Selznick's interference – I feel that it has far more merit than some would allow. The film follows Hemingway's novel with Rock Hudson's Lt Frederick Henry wounded while serving as an ambulance driver in Italy during WW1. While recuperating, he falls in love with an English nurse, Catherine Barkley, played by Jennifer Jones. After returning to the front, he is caught up in the retreat of the Italian army, and almost executed as a traitor. With as much danger from his own side as from the enemy he decides to desert to Switzerland, taking the now pregnant Catherine with him. Although they reach safety, tragedy awaits. The final scenes of this film are harrowing and haunting; they also put to rest any doubts about Rock Hudson's acting ability. A major criticism of the film is that Jennifer Jones at 38 was too old for the part. From my reading of the novel, Catherine Barkley is an indeterminate age, but she would seem to be older than the reviewer who claims she was 21. After all, she tells Lt Henry that she had been engaged for 8 years to someone who was killed on the Somme – surely Hemingway wasn't suggesting that she had become engaged when she was 13 years old. The affair is based on fact, details of which didn't emerge until after Hemingway's death. Hemingway was an ambulance driver in Italy, was wounded and did fall in love with his nurse. Her name was Agnes von Kurowsky, and she was actually an American. If you Google her name, there are quite a few of photographs of her; it's easy to see why Ernest fell for her – she was gorgeous. But she was also 7 years older than the 19-year-old Hemingway. They didn't run away to Switzerland together, in fact Hemingway was invalided back to America and never saw her again. She sent him a letter from Italy, "…I am now and always will be too old, and that is the truth, and I can't get away from the fact that you are just a boy – a kid". He was dumped. It affected him deeply, and Agnes turns up in a number of his stories. "In Love and War", starring Sandra Bullock, is a well-made, but somewhat fictionalised account of the real story. So there you are, Jennifer Jones was 6 years older than Rock Hudson, probably not the ages the novel vaguely suggests, but I feel too much has been made of this aspect. Oh, just for the record, Jennifer Jones looks fantastic for an 'old lady' of 38.Technically there is much to admire – the scenes of the Italian army advancing and retreating are amazing, while Mario Nascimbene composed a lavish score with a recurring raindrop motif that is very effective within the context of the story. The novel was adapted into a play in 1930, which all the films have drawn material from. "A Farewell to Arms" was first filmed in 1932 starring Gary Cooper, and also appears in a slightly different form as one of the segments in "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man". But I feel that Selznick's 1957 film is the best version, and still has a lot to offer.

This is by far the worst Hemingway adaptation ever. Rock Hudson was badly miscast and entirely unbelievable as a hard-bitten soldier/adventurer drawn to war. Jennifer Jones was far too old for her part and Vittorio de Sica seemed to think he was acting in some other movie altogether. They tried to make a large-scale epic out of a low-key romantic novel and the result is terrible. As if that were not enough the whole thing is so slow, overlong and dated that it is practically unwatchable. Rock must have kicked himself for turning down "Sayonara" and "Ben Hur" in order to make this ghastly crap.0/10. To be avoided.

This film should be called adventures in Cinemascope. It is like the screenwriter and director tooks the Cliff's Notes page 3 outline and decided that this would be a great vehicle for a film about the Italian Alps. Rock Hudson is pretty good here, but the dialogue bears no resemblance to Hemingway at all. This is a made up version of Hemingway. Hecht, the screenwriter, is a hack. Watch the 1932 version with Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. That is great cinema and was made by someone who understood Hemingway and the war in Northern Italy. Gary Cooper is very, very good compared to his performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls where he is stiff as a board and thinks he is in a western.Anyway, if you are a Hemingway fan, do yourself a favor and do not watch this film. Your best bet is to get the unabridged audio CD and just listen to one of the greatest novels ever written.