A Farewell to Arms (1932 film) are passed over too abruptly, being suggested rather than told ... Gary Cooper gives an earnest and splendid portrayal [and] Helen Hayes is admirable as Catherine ... another clever characterization is contributed by Adolphe Menjou ... it is unfortunate that these three players, serving the picture so well, do not have the opportunity to figure in more really dramatic interludes." Dan Callahan of "Slant Magazine" notes, "Hemingway ... was grandly contemptuous of Frank Borzage's version of "A Farewell to Arms" ... but time has been kind to the film. It launders out the writer's ... pessimism and replaces it with
Book censorship in the United States of World War I, and the story of the two lovers, Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley, includes graphic details of a childbirth gone awry. This story strays greatly from traditionalist literature, the majority of American literature at the time, which depicted good prevailing over evil. Some cities, including Boston, banned "A Farewell to Arms" in 1929, labeling the book "salacious." In addition, Boston in the 1920s censored other novels such as "The American Mercury", "Elmer Gantry", "An American Tragedy", "Strange Interlude", and "Lady Chatterley’s Lover". The rise of censorship in Boston aroused local opposition. The Harvard Crimson in 1929 wrote,