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.
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.