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Romancing The Conflict

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 28, 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" (although Jake and Lady Ashley are in "A Sun Also Rises," but that's a whole other story).

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" (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 memorable movies.

Gone With the Wind (1939).

Handsome rake Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) falls for Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh), but she loves aristocratic Ashley (Leslie Howard) who in turn loves noble Melanie (Olivia de Havilland). It's the movie's most famous love quadrangle.

Casablanca (1942). Jaded bar owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart) sits out World War II in Morocco until an old flame, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), walks into his bar with her new husband, Victor (Paul Henreid).

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.

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 (Kristin Scott Thomas).

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 romance centers on the fact that Hester (Kate Winslet) has fallen for Thomas (Dougray Scott), but he's obsessed with the enigmatic Claire (Saffron Burroughs).

Kevin Walker

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