Oh God. I thought it was just me.
"Hot sun, cool breeze, white horse on the sea, and a big shot of vitamin B in me!"

Hey IndieCredFred - I think you're onto something here. Why do you think the novel is so highly regarded?
"Hot sun, cool breeze, white horse on the sea, and a big shot of vitamin B in me!"

I have not seen this movie yet but I have read the book. Believe me there is no possible way to act the dialogue from this book correctly. If she was playing it all googley eyed like it was mentioned above then she was doing sort of right. There is absolutley no chemistry is the book to build it off, it is a terrible book some how considered a classic. For anyone who hasn't read it let me give you the short version.
Henry: I Love You darling
Catherine: No I love You
Henry: No I love you, you don't love me darling
Repeat 7x
Henry: Lets have some Cognac.
Absolute garbage book.

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I completely agree with you about Helen Hayes in this movie. While her acting was overall competent, I could TOTALLY clearly see that she was acting at pretty much all times (Gary Cooper, on the other hand, was fully convincing, I thought), and at no point "bought" the supposed chemistry and sexual tension between her and Gary Cooper. (He seemed to be genuinely in to her, but she seemed to strictly be talking love and passion, and being all googly-eyed, but not actually otherwise showing or feeling it.) It didn't help that young Miss Hayes in no way looked like an object of desire; QUITE the opposite, in fact: She looked, in this movie, like a school marm in unflatteringly heavy make-up, trying to be something/someone she wasn't. I'm not trashing the movie, as I did think it was good. But, I found it SO melodramatic in places, and at no point felt that Cooper and Hayes were a believable couple.