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
The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber charges Macomber. He stands his ground and fires at it, but his shots are too high. Wilson fires at the beast as well, but it keeps charging. At the same time, Margot fires a shot from the car, which hits Macomber in the skull and kills him, as narrated by the omniscient narrator: “. . . and Mrs. Macomber, in the car, had shot at the buffalo with the 6.5 Mannlicher as it seemed about to gore Macomber and had hit her husband about two inches up and a little to one side of the base of his skull .