Interwar · Film · 1943
For Whom the Bell Tolls
An American dynamiter fighting for the Spanish Republic has three days in the mountains to blow up a bridge, with a wary guerrilla band and a young woman who changes everything.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 1 places.
Stop 1: Sierra de Guadarrama
Key location
Behind Nationalist lines in the pine-covered mountains, Robert Jordan joins Pablo's band to blow a bridge before the offensive begins.
What really happened
Ernest Hemingway covered the Spanish Civil War as a reporter and set his 1940 novel in the Sierra de Guadarrama, north of Madrid, during the Republican offensive toward Segovia at the end of May 1937. The Republic did use guerrilla bands and dynamiters behind Nationalist lines, and thousands of foreign volunteers, Americans among them, fought for it.
Paramount softened the novel's politics for a wartime audience and shot the mountain scenes in California's Sierra Nevada. The real Segovia offensive, launched on 30 May 1937, failed within a week. The film received nine Academy Award nominations, and Katina Paxinou won Best Supporting Actress as the guerrilla leader Pilar.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Directed by
- Sam Wood
- Countries
- United States
- Languages
- English
- Released
- 1943
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe
- Themes
- Civil war
- Combat
- Romance
