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Romancing The Conflict

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By KEVIN WALKER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 26, 2008

As Ernest Hemingway knew, love and war go together like peanut butter and jelly or Jake and Lady Ashley. Juxtapose romance with constant danger, death and destruction and you come up with some of the most memorable stories ever written.

In Hemingway's case, that was "A Farewell to Arms" and "For Whom The Bell Tolls."

The same is true for movies, although there's more of a tendency on the big screen for melodramatic fireworks that can drag down a film. Such, unfortunately, is the case with the last hour or so of "Australia." The same also can be said of the entirety of "Pearl Harbor" and "In Love and War," both examples from this decade of films that got the war/romance thing wrong (the latter adding insult to injury by being about Hemingway).

However, when it's done right — as it is in the following movies — it makes for movies you will never forget.

Gone With The Wind (1939): Handsome rake Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) falls for Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh), but she's in love with the aristocratic Ashley (Leslie Howard), who in turn is in love with shy but noble Melanie (Olivia de Havilland). It's the most famous love quadrangle of all time.

Casablanca (1942): Jaded bar owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is sitting out World War II in Morocco until an old flame, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) walks into his bar…with her new husband, Victor (Paul Henreid). Some of the most memorable complications ever put on film then ensue.

From Here to Eternity (1953): Although certain sequences are better than the sum of this movie's parts, it still contains some classic moments — most notably Sgt. Warden (Burt Lancaster) rolling around in the Hawaii surf with Karen (Deborah Kerr), who is the captain's wife. Scandalous! Especially for 1953. Meanwhile, much like John Wayne in "The Quiet Man," Pvt. Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) doesn't want to box anymore after almost killing a man in the ring. And the Japanese are about to bomb Pearl Harbor.

The English Patient (1996) Set against the close of World War II, a nurse (Juliette Binoche) tends to a badly burned fighter pilot (Ralph Fiennes), who reveals his past in a series of flashbacks. Naturally, that past involves a doomed love affair with Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas). Not one of my personal favorites, but I acknowledge that many people find it terribly romantic .

Enigma (2001): OK, this is not one of the great screen romances, but I like this quirky little movie about British code breakers during World War II. Plus, anything written by the great Tom Stoppard is worth checking out. The plot is complicated, but the romance centers on the fact that Hester (Kate Winslet) has fallen for Thomas (Dougray Scott), but he's obsessed with the enigmatic and possibly dangerous Claire (Saffron Burroughs). In addition to watching the romance unfold, you can find out what the egg heads did during the war!

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