The original story behind Force of Arms was written by Richard Tregaskis, war correspondent from World War II, best known for Guadalcanal Diary. Of course some would argue that Tregaskis borrowed a lot of the plot from the previous war that Ernest Hemingway chronicled in A Farewell to Arms.
Still it's a nice romantic story brought to life by the teaming of William Holden and Nancy Olson who did four films together back at this time. Nancy Olson in fact got an Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category for Sunset Boulevard which was their first film together.
After his company is relieved on the San Pietro front in the Italian theater, William Holden meets WAC Nancy Olson and a romance blooms. But it's back to the front, in fact Holden gets himself wounded twice during the course of Force of Arms.
Actual combat footage from the Italian campaign is used along with newsreels from the liberation of Rome where the climax takes place. There are good performances here also by Frank Lovejoy and Katherine Warren as the respective commanding officers of Holden and Olson.
This was Bill Holden's first great romantic role along the lines of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. It's a harbinger of what we would later get from him in films like The Bridges of Toko-Ri and Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.
It's a sadly neglected film, one of Bill Holden's better films and should not be missed.
