Based on the best-selling 1929 novel by Ernest Hemingway, Frank Borzage’s 1932 Oscar-winning film adaptation of the tragic Great War romance is newly restored by Lobster Films, and available on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.
An impossibly handsome Gary Cooper stars as the somewhat cynical Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American enlisted in the Italian army to drive ambulances during the war. Through his doctor friend, Rinalidi (Adolphe Manjou), he meets Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), an English nurse whose fiancé was killed at the Somme. What starts as a flirtatious and casual encounter soon develops into something much deeper – but can their passion survive the terrible consequences of the war?
A hugely popular film when it was first released in 1932, A Farewell to Arms was nominated for four Oscars and won for Best Cinematography (Charles Lang) and Best Sound (Franklin Hansen and Harold Lewis).
Special features • Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition • Alternative ending (1932, 5 mins): more optimistic ending to the film that was shot for American audiences • War Scenes in Italy (1915, 1 min): a Topical Budget newsreel item showing crowds gathering in Rome to hear the announcement of Italy’s entry in to the war • Austrian Prisoners in a Concentration Camp (1916, 3 mins): scenes of Austrian prisoner’s of war in Italy in 1916 • The Latest Crime of the Sinister Hun (1918, 2 mins): a Topical Budget newsreel item documenting the burial of nurses and wounded soldiers killed in an air raid on British and Canadian hospitals in France. • Frank Borzage Talks to Cecil B. DeMille (1937, 3 mins, audio): an interview segment extracted from the Lux Radio Theater production of A Farewell to Arms • Fully illustrated booklet featuring full film credits and essays by Geoff Andrew, Adrian Wootton, and Kent Jones
