An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it seems to have a decent reputation (it is included in the ‘The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made’ list selected by the New York Times, among other things), I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though I really loved the title, to be honest, I really had a hard time to care about this movie. First of all, for some reason, I thought it would be a Western but, obviously, it turned out to be something completely different after all. At least, it was neat to see a vintage Hollywood movie dealing with the Spanish Civil War but it was rather unfortunate that, even though there was only one American character, everyone was speaking English and not Spanish. Even more hard to swallow was the idea of casting Ingrid Bergman, possibly the most famous Swedish actress that ever lived, to play a Spanish woman. And, yet, I have to admit that Bergman, who was so gorgeous and so charismatic back then, was probably the only thing I really enjoyed in this movie. On the other hand, even though Gary Cooper was praised for his performance and even though I have to admit that he was quite charismatic as well, in my opinion, his character was actually terribly bland and even rather boring. Eventually, the most interesting characters were Pilar and, above all, Pablo. Still, the movie was often pretty cheesy and, above all, so damned long. Seriously, maybe half of the duration was about this group of guerrilla fighters having some really tedious discussions and the other half was about Robert Jordan and Maria constantly declaring their love for each other which was hardly more exciting. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing turned out to be rather disappointing, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you really like the genre.