I am astonished that anyone could have rated this as a "10." Give me a break!I have not read the book, so perhaps this film does correctly reflect the story that Hemingway wrote. Nonetheless, as a film it is deadly. As others have correctly pointed out, Gary Cooper was wooden throughout. He finally rises to the occasion in the last thirty seconds of the film where he realizes he has the strength to shoot the machine gun at the enemy by thinking of "Maria" (Ingrid Bergman). It's also at this point that the film slips into voice-over mode; it's jarring. Ingrid Bergman was, without a doubt, stunningly beautiful; that could not be argued. I also felt that she was a good actress -- but not necessarily in this film. It isn't her fault; it's what she was given to work with -- a dull, uninspired, script. Let's talk about that script. There were a lot of questions and answers that repeated the questions. There was mundane, banal, dull, laughable. The movie went on endlessly and for what... because Gary had to blow up a bridge at dawn, "Those are orders!" -- and so we, the viewing audience, must also wait until "dawn" while Gary, Ingrid and a band of misfits point fingers at each other, drink wine, eat, and apparently never bathe or take a dump. The only actors that I found to be interesting were Katina Paxinou, who had a sort of ferociousness about her performance (and the Academy awarded her), and Akim Tamiroff, who looked like the original Hobbitt. As the movie wanders around mountains and fights between nationalists and republicans or somebody and somebody, the only thing that seems to be of concern to Ingrid is whether Gary is okay. In fact, that seems to be the only thing that matters to Katina as well. Despite all the talk of liberation and freeing themselves from their oppressors (this was supposedly the Spanish Civil War), all that seemed to matter was whether Ingrid was happy. While I did enjoy looking at Ingrid's pretty face, and Gary's eyes were killer, I could not understand what she saw in him. He was twice her age, if not more, and he kissed with the passion of a sedated goldfish. It's an old film. It's slow. I felt that emotions were manipulated beyond all reason. I just did not enjoy it. So 2 out of 10, 1 for Ingrid's face, 1 for Gary's eyes.

I am no fan of Ernest Hemingway, finding most of his work to be overwritten macho wish fulfillment, so take this with a grain of salt if you're a Poppa addict. But I found the film to be an overlong bore centering around a leaden Gary Cooper (playing the clichéd embodiment of Hollywood's idea of a romantic soldier of fortune) and a ludicrously miscast blonde Swede Ingrid Bergman as a Spanish freedom fighter. Like most of the movie, Bergman is distractingly gorgeous and the filmmakers' choice to shoot it in opulent Technicolor often undercuts the dramatic weight of the story.Far more convincing than the two leads are Katina Paxnou (who richly deserved the Oscar she won) and Akim Tamiroff as characters grounded with human flaws and inconsistencies that make them compelling, as opposed to the stupefyingly boring Cooper and Bergman, whose only interest comes from the undeniable sexual chemistry that they project. It might have been a perfectly unobjectionable little 1940s adventure film were it not for a script that takes two hours and forty-five minutes to tell a story that frankly isn't very interesting to begin with.Things finally do start to rev up in the second half when the handsome and heroic Cooper finally starts to play out the manly mission that threw him in the midst of the freedom fighters to begin with, but up to then I found my patience weighed down by Cooper and Bergman making goo-goo eyes at each other while Paxnou/Tamiroff & Company bicker amongst one another, often using Hemingway's flowery prose for dialogue that is completely out of step with their characters.If you're an advocate of Hemingway's brand of ultra-masculine romanticism you should probably disregard this review. But if you're a more objective viewer, while the film certainly has its positive aspects (usually when Paxnou or Tamiroff is on the screen), be prepared to mouth the word "overrated" after sitting through its lengthy run-time.

As a Spaniard and a historian, I've always found this film deeply moving. Here in Spain, the films on our Civil War have become so common that, for youngest people, the war seems to be some kind of ancient mythology. This movie allows us to see how the Spanish War was perceived by other countries in contemporary dates. Actually, we cannot forget its importance as a test for WWII. Maria's life remind me of the stories that my grandma used to tell. Men went to war, but women were often ravaged by the winner army as revenge. What really amazes me is the lack of awareness that many people have on my country and their audacity on showing it. I think that's the effect of decades of Mexican actors playing Spaniards in Hollywood films. As a blonde, pale skinned, Caucasian woman, as the majority of my compatriots (remember, we're Europeans), I think Bergman's appearance fits perfectly her part.

To suggest, as a number of reviews have, that Cooper's acting is wooden is being polite. His words emanate like some parody of a person learning English for the first time, stoned, and in a casket. Granted, some of the lines he is given are terrible ("If I go, you go with me," and about 10 variations of this), but he is supposed to be an actor. At least, the others give some flair to their performance, but Coop was clueless. This is what happens when you get a Republican to play a Hemingway hero in the Spanish Civil War: a truly treasonous performance. As much as I like him in some pictures, such as High Noon, his acting or whatever you call it in FWTBT is deader than Monty Python's Norwegian Blue.