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For Whom the Bell Tolls Movie Review

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 epic war film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Katina Paxinou and Akim Tamiroff. It’s a flawed, but well crafted picture.

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“If you don’t love me,

I’ll love you enough for both of us“

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During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge. Based on a famous Ernest Hemingway novel that I haven’t read myself, the movie is apparently faithful to the novel, but it left many things out as it focused heavily on the romantic side of things.

That emphasis on romance definitely hurt the film to a degree because in terms of themes we do not get much to savor here. Yes, the Spanish Civil War is a highly complex 20^th century war, the most confounding of all wars, but this movie not even attempting to make audiences understand it was troublesome to say the least. We never get to examine the war properly and who is fighting whom. It’s just a backdrop to the romance.

Thankfully, the romance worked. The two performers both excelled at playing Maria and Robert. Ingrid Bergman is wonderful as she always is and at times even very endearing while Gary Cooper is suitably heroic and highly likable. The two share a couple of very tender and sweet moments that made the movie enjoyable to watch.

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But I would actually contend that the supporting players were the real stars here. It is interesting that Hollywood back then had so many actors hailing from different countries and this film is a proof that the industry was perhaps more diverse back then than it is now. The Armenian actor Akim Tamiroff killed it as the very memorable Pedro while the Greek actress Katina Paxinou was the standout overall with such a powerful performance in an admirably feminist, strong role as the heroic Pilar.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is also undeniably technically polished and highly cinematic. The cinematography is excellent, especially in its employment of well-placed close-ups. The score is strong and the production design overall is superb. The movie’s runtime of almost three hours, though, is imposing. The first half ended up being much more engaging than the second one due to that huge length, but the ending itself was so strong that it also impacted me personally.

This picture was nominated for whopping nine Academy Awards. The nods for all four aforementioned actors were highly deserved with the other nominations also being somewhat deserving with the exception of the editing of course as that length was imposing. While I wouldn’t call the film iconic or anything (it was the second highest-grossing film of its year but now its impact is rather blunted), it is somewhat underrated as it has its cinematic value and it’s far from the worst book adaptations. I just wish that it was better paced and more sophisticated in its script.

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