For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Editor's Note Ernest Hemingway's 1939 novel, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, stands among the great pieces of American literature. Sam Wood's direction of the script by Dudley Nichols stars Gary Cooper as Hemingway's pain-ridden, love-torn hero, Robert Jordan, a Montana schoolteacher who risks his life to fight Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. Jordan joins a group of Spanish guerrilla fighters whose mission is to blow up a bridge behind enemy lines. Ingrid Bergman plays Maria, a beautiful Spanish refugee who has been rendered mute by the trauma of a rape. Over the course of four days, Maria and Jordan fall head over heels in love, a plotline that subsumes the fighting and the war itself. Still, it is Katina Paxinou as Pilar, the hen mother of the guerrilla troop, who steals the show in her Oscar-winning performance. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS is not to be missed by any Hemingway fan.

	Akim Tamiroff
	Katina Paxinou
	Artur De Cordova
	Joseph Calleia
	Victor Varconi
	Ingrid Bergman
	Gary Cooper
	Vladimir Sokoloff
	Mikhail Rasumny
	Alexander Granach
	Sam Wood - Producer
	William Cameron Menzies - Production Designer
	Sherman Todd - Editor
	Victor Young - Composer
	John F. Link - Editor
	Ray Rennahan - Director of Photography
	Ernest Hemingway - Story
	Dudley Nichols - Screenwriter
	Sam Wood - Director

Total Film
"...Nominated for Oscars in virtually every category....Cooper is every bit the romantic hero..." 03/01/2000 p.85

USA Today
"...[A] blend of golden age Hollywood magic and ponderous storytelling..." 09/15/1995 p.4D