Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman turn Ernest Hemingway's classic tale of the Spanish Civil War into a star vehicle made for two, while director Sam Wood scrubs this tale clean of political taint (there's no mention of Franco, for example). Cooper plays an American member of a loyalist partisan group who falls for Bergman while on a mission to blow up a bridge. Though lacking in context, the film's focus on Cooper's love for the much-abused Bergman works well enough because of the quality of the two actors. However, it was Katina Paxinou's performance as a strong-willed guerilla fighter that won the Oscar, perhaps for the sense of reality she brought to the otherwise sanitised proceedings.

Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.