Critic Reviews

• , TIME Magazine

  What Hemingway wrote as an interlude of amorous flutes and distant drums, Producer David 0. Selznick has scored for brass.

• Philip Roth, The New Republic

  Perhaps what is most irritating about the film is that too many times an exciting scene of Hemingway's is shucked out in favor of a distressingly inferior one invented (if I may indulge the Muse a moment) by Ben Hecht, who is responsible for the script.

• Variety Staff, Variety

  Sweep and frankness alone don't make a great picture; and Farewell suffers from an overdose of both.

• Bosley Crowther, New York Times

  This film, for all its size and color, doesn't do much more by Hemingway's book than was done by the sentimental version of it played by Helen Hayes and Gary Cooper some twenty-five years ago.

• , Time Out

  A padded Ben Hecht script and Selznick's invariable tendency to overkill are equally to blame.

• Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

  The exaggerated production values overrun everything, including director Charles Vidor, who hardly seems to know which way to turn.

• , TV Guide's Movie Guide

  An overblown Hollywood extravaganza that was universally condemned when first released and hasn't improved with age.

• Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

  Selznick's last film as producer is a vastly disappointing remake of the superior 1932 version of Hemingway's novel, a sentimental, overblown production with stiff performances from Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones.

• Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

  One of David O. Selznick's many attempts to shape his lady-love Jennifer Jones' largely immutable mug into the face that launched a thousand cinematic ships.

• Jeremiah Kipp, Slant Magazine

  We have David O. Selznick to blame for this bloated two-hour-plus Technicolor remake.

Read all 10 critic reviews