Ernest Hemingway’s novels and short stories have been adapted into over 20 films
It was never in doubt that Hemingway's moving stories would be adapted for the big screen. 'A Farewell to Arms,' a 1932 film, was the first to feature his work. Ernest Hemingway's novel 'A Farewell to Arms' is set during World War I's Italian campaign. It is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant ("tenente") in the Italian Army's ambulance corps. The title is based on a poem written by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele.
Set against the backdrop of World War I, the novel depicts a love affair between an expatriate named Henry and an English nurse named Catherine Barkley. Its publication cemented Hemingway's place as a major modern American writer. The book went on to become his first best-seller and has been described as "the premier American war novel from that debacle of World War I."
The novel has been adapted several times, first for the stage in 1930, then for film in 1932 and again in 1957, and finally for television as a three-part miniseries in 1966. In Love and War, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Chris O'Donnell and Sandra Bullock in 1996, depicts Hemingway's life in Italy as an ambulance driver prior to writing A Farewell to Arms.
His writing inspired the literary world, and 14 films based on his novels and short stories had already been made by 1996. Phillip Kaufman's 'Hemingway and Gellhorn,' a biopic film about Ernest Hemingway and his journalist wife, Martha Gellhorn, was released in 2012.
