For Whom the Bell Tolls

3/12/2026

Trying to adapt this Ernest Hemingway novel for the screen was always going to be quite an ask, and for me it was just one too much for Gary Cooper - even if the author had written it with him in mind for the role of the intrepid “Jordan”. He is more of an academic rather than a crusader, but he is experienced with explosives, restless and soon finds himself attracted by the Internationals Brigade fighting for the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. With heavy snow on the ground, he is tasked by their Soviet armourers with working under the audacious “Pilar” (Katina Paxinou) to mine an important bridge which is to be detonated when the Fascists attempt to shift their ordnance across it. Meantime, he encounters the young “Maria” (Ingrid Bergman) who has only recently been a victim of