![]() But Paramount's saviors turned out to be Bing Crosby, Mae West, and Cecil B. The studio nearly went under during the Depression. But Adolph Zukor and Paramount also knew what sold movie tickets and Paramount was having a lot of financial troubles at this time. Cooper and Helen Hayes made a tender romantic couple in the Borzage tradition, probably more Borzage than Hemingway. He saw in Cooper the ideal Hemingway hero and when Paramount acquired the rights to For Whom the Bells Toll, Hemingway insisted it be done with Cooper or nobody. He and Coop became fast friends right up to when they both died in 1961. The one thing that Hemingway did like was the casting of Gary Cooper as the hero Fredric Henry. A Farewell to Arms is definitely in keeping with that tradition. Borzage did a whole slew of tender romantic stories in the Thirties like Three Comrades, The Mortal Storm, stuff like that. If he did just knowing Frank Borzage directed this film should have told him something. When Papa Hemingway said that he obviously did not know Hollywood well at all. They turned his novel and put too much emphasis on the romance angle. When this version of A Farewell to Arms came out, Ernest Hemingway hated this film. ![]()
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