The Americanization of Emily (REGION 1) (NTSC) [DVD] [US Import]

Paddy Chayefsky's fluent, clever, pungent polemics have always seemed more than a little stagy to me. If there was an opportunity for Chayefsky to shake his finger at us and give us a speech, he couldn't resist. The Americanization of Emily, a clever romantic drama about war, heroics and practicality, is a good example. Nearly 45 years after it was filmed, the movie still packs a cynically amusing anti-war punch...but those speeches sure do go on. If James Garner, Julie Andrews and Melvyn Douglas weren't such sympathetic and skilled actors, we might be tempted to leave the movie playing while we take a bathroom break or make a fresh bowl of popcorn. The movie has a running time of nearly two hours, so you'll probably need to do both anyway.

If Chayefsky's speeches wind up doing turnabouts, the story line is simple and sweet. It's 1944 in London and Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (Garner) has used all of his charm and skill to stay far away from danger. He thinks war is a fool's game where people can get killed. The real heroes are the cowards who stay far away from the senseless killing. (Of course, Chayefsky gives Charlie a back-story that is touching, brave and good for a tear up or two.) He's comfortably on the staff of the aging political Admiral William Jessup (Douglas), working with a fellow Lieutenant Commander, Bus Cummings (James Coburn), to set up lavish parties for the brass and VIPs, with plenty of rationed goods -- dry-aged strip steaks, avocados and bourbon -- and friendly women. Then he meets Emily Barham (Julie Andrews), whose father died in an air raid, brother was shot down during the Blitz and whose husband was killed at Tobruk. Now she's in uniform serving as a driver. With much back and forthing about Brits, Americans, sex, Hershey bars, heroics, duty, bravery and heart-felt cynicism, etc., etc., etc., they fall in love. By then Admiral Jessup is going gaga and decides a movie about the heroic first man on the D-Day beaches would be a terrific PR scoop for the Navy. Charlie finds himself with no wiggle room and is soon wading through the surf on what could well be a dead hero's mission. Will Charlie survive? Will Bus set him up to be a dead hero? Will Emily inspire him? Will Chayefsky give just about everyone, but mainly Garner, long speeches for us to be charmed and challenged by? Need you ask?

Without Garner's and Andrew's likability, this movie would get tiresome quickly. It really needs to lose about half an hour and Chayefsky needs a tough-minded editor. Still, the polemics are often funny and uneasy and Garner was one of the best of the laid-back, charmingly skeptical leading men of his time. (Three roles that I think show him at his best, whatever one thinks of the movies, are Jason McCullough in Support Your Local Sheriff, Murphy Jones in Murphy's Romance and Raymond Hope in Twilight.) He does an exceptional job with Chayefsky's words.

Why not give the last word...well, the last many words, to Chayefsky wearing his Charlie Madison mask. Madison sure was a fluent, facile speechifier. Says Charlie: War isn't hell at all. It's man at his best; the highest morality he's capable of. It's not war that's insane, you see. It's the morality of it. It's not greed or ambition that makes war: it's goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we've managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we'll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It's not war that's unnatural to us, it's virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.

Time to make the popcorn, or to run down to the store and buy a bag from Chayefsky.

The black-and-white DVD transfer looks just fine. There is a commentary track with the director, Arthur Hiller.

I first saw The Americanization Of Emily when it came out and I loved it. Before getting it on DVD, I had not seen it for a long time but I thought about it often - not least because I had since followed the film's example of being an American guy in love with an English girl. That culture shock is the heart of the film and is something I can attest to. I also remember my father, who had been in the US Navy in WWII, telling me how accurately the film depicted the Navy brass. All in all, The Americanization Of Emily gets better every time I see it.

Paddy Chayefsky's script gives the film its solid foundation with three dimensional characters who speak articulate yet believable dialogue. The mixture of satire, sex and sentiment is just right. The British are fond of saying that Americans have no sense of irony. They have obviously never seen this film.

Holding everything together and making the audience care is James Garner in the most impressive performance of his remarkable career. He plays a "dog robber" - personal aide to an important admiral, an officer dedicated to making the war as comfortable as possible, and a devout coward. Stationed in London during the build-up to D-Day, Garner is having a very pleasant war indeed. He is a man who is very sure of himself and what he believes in. At least, until he meets Julie Andrews - English war widow and military driver. These two people have absolutely nothing in common. So it is inevitable, yet somehow oddly logical, that they fall in love.

But a little thing called World War Two keeps getting in the way. Garner's mentally unhinged admiral decides that the first dead man on Omaha Beach should be a sailor and wants Garner to photograph the event - if not have the honour of being dead himself. Cue the best exploration of heroism and cowardice (also known as common sense) ever put on screen.

Although the film is undoubtedly Garner's brightest moment, the rest of the cast make solid and memorable contributions. Melvyn Douglas, in one of his last roles as the admiral, and James Coburn, in one of his early roles as a gung-ho junior officer both ably demonstrate that the phrase military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. The wonderful Joyce Grenfell is both batty and touching as Julie Andrews' mother. And what about Julie Andrews? People who only know her from the oversweet Mary Poppins or Sound Of Music will be amazed by her utterly convincing performance as a woman who refuses to let reality destroy her romanticism. She and Garner spark and complement each other beautifully and their chemistry, more than anything else, makes the film so memorable.

You might think that a black and white film made in the Sixties and set during World War Two would seem dated. But The Americanization Of Emily is as fresh and engaging as ever because, above all, it is about people and the human condition. And they, for better or worse, never change.

AN ENIGMATIC DE ROMANTICISM OF WAR

There is no better movie to explode the myth that war is neither noble nor heroic but plain miserable than this ARTHUR HILLER endeavour written by CHAYEFSKY which both exposes the lunacy of war as well as revealing the commercialisation of war itself by profiteering vultures .

JOHN GARNER plays the quivering coward who avoids any combat and is a stalwart aide to an american naval general MELVYN DOUGLAS ,whom he pampers and entertains along with the rest of nava brass in gaudy london hotel rooms where silk stockings ,furs and chocolate can acquire maidens and men at war into a party mode in and out of bed .

he meets the virtuous war widow played with a rather cynical charm by julie andrews in a role which is her most intellectual career best ,and they start an affair though emily is rather disapproving when it comes to garner's yellow streak .

james coburn is meanwhile chosen by the general to be honoured as being the first was casualty on OMAHA BEACH on D-DAY ,SO navy can win the public accolades and the funds from the congress ,but as it transpires mr.Garner ends up taking his place and ends up landing as the first yank marine in a real comic turn on normandy beach .

The sarcasm on war combined with a rather bitter romance is glorious while it makes a rather open repudiation of sacrifice and heroic strife for patriotic injunction where the message is that a dead hero is worst off than quivering coward who is alive .

The commercialisation of war is the inherent theme here where profiteering and war contracts are the reason war is in vogue while the rest are war fodder to be sacrificed as lambs at the whims of demented top brass .

It is made even more sarcastic and affective by a memorable conversation which is a cinematic landmark between JOYCE GRENFELL playing andrew's mum and Garner's rather ironical but tender patronising attitude to a woman who has lost her husband son and father to a war and is in denial of the tragic events is both mean yet moral .

that episode is a superlative piece which evokes emotion from desperation to joy and yet lacerates the human conscience .

THE teaming of andrews and garner is a hoot as the english virtue and nobility clash head on with the american vulgarity and moral indifference yet their mutual attraction is charismatic and it goes to dizzy heights in a bizarre non-traditional romance .

A great war satire filled with gleeful sarcasm ,quirky romance and rather edgy characters who are so unpredictable you will be in an intellectual conundrum but infinitely entertained by martial antics ,political revelry and romantic sensitivities though some might think as an offensive and tasteless take on the modern day warfare but then it is war which is offensive and evil itself and the message here is crystal clear.