For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Produced and directed by Sam Wood (Kings Row (1942)) with a screenplay by Dudley Nichols (The Informer (1935)) that was based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway this above average adventure drama features a romance between its stars Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Cooper plays idealist Robert Jordan who has a talent for blowing things up and an yen for being where the action is. So in 1930 he’s in Spain where a civil war rages and his skills are needed. He is led into the rocky mountains by a guide (Vladimir Sokoloff) where he joins a clan led by a hard man named Pablo (Akim Tamiroff) whom he’s not sure he trusts. Katina Paxinou plays Pilar a rough (and physically ugly yet wise) woman herself who can stand-up to and/or influence Pablo; she encourages a relationship between Maria (Bergman in her first Technicolor movie) a victim of rape by the enemy and Jordan. Arturo de Córdova Mikhail Rasumny and Fortunio Bonanova play others in this group of anarchists who ponder whether to assist Jordan with carrying out his mission to blow up a strategic bridge or not per Pablo. Joseph Calleia (and George Coulouris uncredited) is also in the cast.

Leads Cooper and Bergman received Academy Award nominations; Paxinou won in the Best Supporting Actress category on her only Oscar nomination and Tamiroff (The General Died at Dawn (1936) also with Cooper) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Picture and its Color Art Direction-Interior Decoration (a lot of the story takes place in a cave). Two time AA winner Ray Rennahan’s stunningly crisp and vivid Color Cinematography was also nominated as was the film’s Editing and Victor Young’s Score.

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