Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #23: For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

Director: Sam Wood
Writers: Dudley Nichols, from the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Cinematographer: Ray Rennahan
Produced by: Buddy G. DeSylva and Sam Wood for Paramount Pictures
Starring: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Joseph Calleia, Arturo de Cordova, Vladimir Sokoloff

Why I chose it
Having recently viewed Ken Burns' documentary about Ernest Hemingway, I put this film on my short list when it was also included on Filmsite.org's list of best 1943 films. It won my Twitter poll by just a few votes.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
American expatriate Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) is fighting on the side of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. His commanding general assigns him to a dangerous mission to blow up a bridge strategic to the Fascists. To do this, he joins up with a group of guerilla fighters led by the squabbling couple Pilar (Katina Paxinou) and Pablo (Akim Tamiroff). Among them is a young woman Maria (Ingrid Bergman) recently rescued from being a political captive. Through a series of alliances, betrayals, and re-negotiations, the plan to demolish the bridge inches forward. In the meantime, Robert and Maria fall in love and pledge to join their souls for eternity. 

Production Background 
Production began soon after the book had become a sensation, and Hemingway, who earned $150,000 for the film rights, was actively involved in the planning process. He counted Gary Cooper among his friends, and modeled the character of Robert Gordon on the actor. It was easy then to cast Cooper in the film. Paramount struggled casting the two primary leading female roles, but eventually settled on Hemingway's pick Ingrid Bergman, who had coveted the role of Maria, and Greek stage actress Katina Paxinou as Pilar. 

There were some tricky issues for the Production Code Administration censors. First, on the political side, Paramount was nervous to be too explicit in naming the 'Fascists' as the enemy here, especially since they were the victors in Spain, and kept the two sides' identities a bit fuzzy. (The film was ultimately banned in Spain and only released there after Franco's death). The other big issues were the "sex" scene between Robert and Maria and the revelation that Maria had been gang-raped by her captors. In the film, it wasn't clear to what extent the physical relationship between the lovers progressed, although they did show the two in a partial shot with a sleeping bag, and it also included a bit of dialog about the rape.

The film garnered several Oscar nods for its actors, including Cooper and Bergman, but only Paxinou won as Best Supporting Actress in her first and only nomination.

Some other notable film-related events in 1943 (from Filmsite.org):

• 20th Century Fox began distributing three million pinups of leggy actress Betty Grable, in her famed white swimsuit photo (with her hands on her hips and an over-the-shoulder smile), mostly to GIs serving in armed forces overseas. She was declared their favorite pinup. 
• 50 year-old British actor Leslie Howard, famous for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), was killed when onboard a DC-3 plane that was shot down by German Luftwaffe fighters over the Bay of Biscay near Lisbon, Portugal (considered a war zone).
• The precursor of Italian neo-realism was Luchino Visconti's gritty Ossessione (1943, It.), the Italian director's first film. Loosely adapted from James M. Cain's pulp novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, it enraged fascist censors and inspired the term neo-realism. The movement would really take hold from the mid-40s to the mid-50s, with its main exponents being Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica.
• Supported by the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), Olivia de Havilland filed a far-reaching lawsuit against her studio, Warner Bros, eventually winning in a 1945 ruling called the DeHavilland Law. It declared that a studio could not indefinitely extend a performer's contract. It imposed a 7 year limit on contracts for service unless the employee agreed to an extension beyond that term. The decision ultimately limited the oppressive contract-power of studios over their performers.
• Controversy was engendered when 54-year-old Charlie Chaplin wed 17-year-old Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill (who cut ties with her and disowned her following the marriage). 

My Random Observations

• This is the first film in my 50 Years of Film in 50 Weeks series that I actively disliked. It plodded along for its nearly three hours running time; various European actors with different accents were made up with brownface to look gypsy or Spanish (all except Ingrid Bergman that is); and the romance was telegraphed and overwraught from the moment Bergman showed up on screen. I was desperate for the bridge to blow up already and end everyone's misery.

Akim Tamiroff (center), his band, and Gary Cooper (right)

• The rugged mountain scenery (filmed in California) was quite impressive at times -- which stands to reason as the great William Cameron Menzies was the production designer.

• When Ingrid Bergman cried out "Roberto!", I couldn't help but think about her marriage to Roberto Rossellini, then still a few years in the future.

  

  Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls

  
  
• Katina Paxinou was really my favorite actor in the film; she seemed to own the camera and her fellow actors. However, Paxinou's features and dark hair reminded me of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West (all she needed was green face makeup and pointed hat).
  
  
  
• It's time I revisit the novel, which, as opposed to the film, is a true classic.

Where to Watch

The film can be streamed for a small free on many platforms.

Further Reading
Critic and writer James Agee's review here offers some of the reasons why I didn't like the film, but also praises some performances.

Alan Ladd blazes down the (Western) trail with 'Branded' (1950)

September 3rd marks the birthday of one of my favorite old Hollywood stars, Alan Ladd. To celebrate, I'm pleased to contribute this post to 'The Man Who Would Be Shane: The Alan Ladd Blogathon," hosted by Gabriela at Pale Writer. Check out all the great posts this week HERE.

By 1950 when Branded came around, Alan Ladd was already a superstar. After tooling around in bit parts, he'd burst forth in 1942 in This Gun For Hire, in a noir anti-hero role, and his on-screen spark with co-star Veronica Lake prompted Paramount to pair them in multiple noir/adventure tales over the next few years. During this time though, Paramount was casting about for more properties to feature their cash cow, and Westerns seemed like a good match for Ladd's stoic tough-guy-with-a-sensitive-soul persona. His natural athleticism and comfort with horses (he owned his own ranch) could be put to good use. The first Western Ladd made was Whispering Smith (1948) and when it succeeded the next one wasn't far behind.

In Branded, Ladd embraces the Western with renewed gusto, and blazed open the Western trail that was to lead to many film successes in the 1950s. While nobody would put this one above his most iconic film, Shane, which would come in 1953, it's an altogether worthwhile piece of cinematic entertainment and in my personal top-five Ladd films. As in Shane, Ladd's character is a gunfighter with a murky past, also with a single, meaning-packed name: Choya (derived from cholla--a prickly cactus native to Mexico and the southwest U.S.).

Don't mess with me: Alan Ladd in Branded's opening scene

The novel Montana Rides by Evan Evans was adapted for the screen by Sydney Boehm and Cyril Hume, and Rudolph Maté was assigned to direct. Maté, who had been a renowned cinematographer, had recently made his limited foray into directing, but all his previous films were black and white dramas. Though the photography credit goes to Charles B. Lang, Jr., I imagine Maté had a lot to say about shot composition. Regardless, the breathtaking Technicolor views of the Arizona canyon country grounded the film in the rugged West, even if the narrative action pla in Texas near the Mexican border.

The time period is never specifically stated in the film, but seems to be consistent with a mid-late 19th century when the West was still a rough place for the white newcomers to the territory. Unscrupulous fortune seekers roamed around threatening ranchers and gunfighters challenged the establishment of an orderly society in small towns. It's this environment that we're thrown into after the opening credits have rolled -- we meet Choya, who's been holed up in a store trying to evade a posse, and with guns blazing makes a daring escape with his only friends (his guns) and kin (his horse). He's tracked down in the rugged country side by Leffingwell (Robert Keith) and convinced to go in with him on a con--for the promise of a fortune, Choya's to impersonate the long lost son of wealthy rancher Lavery (Charles Bickford). He's even tatooed with a birthmark to match that of the son, who was kidnapped at five years old.

Choya getting a tattoo on his right shoulder by "Tattoo" (John
Berkes). Leffingwell (Robert Keith) makes sure the design is right.

Choya shows up at the ranch, and by acting the tough but hard-working cynic, he earns a job as a ranch hand and when the moment is right, he lets himself be discovered as missing Richard Lavery. There are complications, of course, including the fact that Choya can't help but be attracted to his new "sister," Ruth (Mona Freeman). Additionally, the sleazy Leffingwell has been revealed to be the kidnapper, having apparently concocted this plot over 25 years earlier and sold the real Richard Lavery to a Mexican jefe, Rubriz (Joseph Calleia). Richard has no recollection of his birth family, and is now living as Tonio Rubriz (Peter Hansen). Of course these dilemmas are all solved in a tidy 104 minutes, but only after an extended chase sequence through the streams, canyons and caves along the border, and nail-biting confrontations and 'come-to-Jesus' moments.

Choya meets Rubriz (Joseph Calleia).

Watching this, it seemed to me that Ladd was comfortable being that tough guy spitting nails at his antagonists, and showing off his strong lithe body wrestling or attempting to break a young colt, while also enjoying being stretched to act in more subtle ways. In the scene in which he watches his new 'mother' (an excellent Selena Royle) get emotional after it dawns on her she's looking at her lost son, his discomfort at his deception is evident in his expression and body language. In the Alan Ladd documentary The Real Quiet Man, co-star Mona Freeman commented on Ladd's sensitivity. "He didn't always realize it himself...he was sensitive, and there was a great gentleness about him."

Does Choya want to go through with his mistaken identity deception?

While overall Ladd isn't allowed to stray too far from his handsome leading man presence, I particularly liked those scenes in which he's sporting facial scruff, been dunked in a river, or dragged through the canyon dust. It's a way he's liberated from the confining image that dogged him much of his career, even while it made him box office gold for many years. It's evident he's having a blast making this film. According to Freeman, he was full of gags and fun on set, relaxed and enjoying himself. He did, however, show tremendous deference to the veteran Charles Bickford, even relentlessly trying to beg off a crucial fisticuffs scene until Paramount execs forced the shoot.

Ladd seems to be double-fisted with the guns in this movie.

Another plus for the film is a strong supporting cast, especially Bickford and Freeman, who has just the right blend of sweetness and spunk. Joseph Calleia hams it up a bit, but I can still buy him as a Mexican bandit chief. Robert Keith is perfection as the scheming, murderous Leffingwell who keeps appearing at all the wrong times determined to get what he wants. Peter Hansen made his film debut here, before becoming a reliable TV star. He and Ladd became good friends making the film, and Ladd cast him in a few of his later pictures he produced for Warner Bros.

Ruth Lavery (Mona Freeman) and Choya negotiate their relationship

Unlike other Westerns in which the history and politics of time and place are dominant themes, here the story is a melodrama, and could have easily been adapted for a different setting. What's really being explored here is the process of personal discovery -- and the meaning of family. The film illuminates many angles on this theme without bludgeoning the audience with it. Every character is alone with their struggles, in many ways, and the rugged landscape both reflects and intensifies those struggles. We know that at the film's end when most characters attain a bit of respite and the understanding they're looking for, it's probably only temporary as the next journey of survival is around a future corner.

Don't forget to read more great blog posts about Alan Ladd and his films here!