For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

 Well, while this might be dubbed as one of the greatest love stories of all time but I found it hollow.

Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) arrives in Spain as an expert in demolition as he blows up bridges, trying, in vain, to thwart the Spanish Revolution. However, his career in America involved teaching Spanish to college kids. 

Tasked with blowing up a bridge, he starts to form a band of rebels to help him with the impossible task. It is here that he meets the fiery Pilar (Katrina Paxinou) and her drunk and unreliable husband, Pablo (Akim Tamiroff) along with the orphaned Maria (Ingrid Bergman) who escaped prison after watching her parents get killed before her eyes and then she was raped. Yet, she falls in love with Robert and he with her, because there has to be a love story. And while I love love stories, I prefer an organic one rather than a circumstantial or convenient one. 

And this is also a long film, with several shoot out scenes and debates among the men, not to mention some chaste but tender moments between Robert and Maria, all leading up to Robert's tragic death, though he goes out swinging, leaving Maria to continue to add to her constant losses, grieving alone. 

Overall, the film had some good parts and was well-acted and staged, filming could not have been easy given that this film was released in 1943 so in many ways, it was a success. I just wish that Cooper wasn't so wooden as his character was relatively bland which leads Bergman to appear to overact around him just because she breathed life into her Maria. However, the standout was Paxinou who may have been miscast (she was Greek, not Spanish), but she was brilliant nevertheless and did fully deserve her Supporting Actress Oscar. Grade: B

Side Notes:

-Paxinou's make-up was not a success as it made her appear dirtier than her character was supposed to be.

-Maria was only supposed to be nineteen, Bergman was nearly twenty-eight at the time.

-Pilar's flashback, explaining Pablo's actions, is somewhat bizarre as she narrators everything. 

-Though all four of the lead actors received Oscar nominations, shockingly, the director Sam Wood, did not.