Emily

One Saturday night in the fall of 1964, I went alone, as usual, to a theater in center city Philadelphia to watch a popular movie of the day, the name of which I have completely forgotten.  However, much to my delight, I got to see a second film, a surprise screening of a new release, The Americanization of Emily, a film I have never forgotten.  It starred James Garner and Julie Andrews. Garner had become a TV star from the popular western series of the 1950s, Maverick, where he portrayed "an articulate cardsharp." Andrews had just finished the film, Mary Poppins, for which she would win an Academy Award for Best Actress.

The Americanization of Emily initially caught my attention as a rare black-and-white film of that era.  It also appeared to be another typical World War II drama, taking place in London, just before the D Day invasion (June 6, 1944 - 73 years ago next Tuesday). However, this was not the usual picture glorifying war.  It was an anti-war film.

Garner, as Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison, is a "dog robber," a highly efficient aide to his Admiral.  His job is "to keep his boss supplied with luxury goods and amiable women."  Needless to say, Charlie is the best dog robber in the U.S. Navy.  

Andrews, as Emily Barham, a driver from the British military motor pool assigned to Charlie, "has lost her husband, brother and father in the war."  A hopeless romantic, Emily falls in love with Charlie because (1) his job keeps him far from danger and (2) she is both fascinated and disgusted by his access to expensive material goods while England endures wartime rationing.

There is some wonderful dialogue in the film which was written by Paddy Chayefsky, a winner of three Academy Awards: 1955, Best Adapted Screenplay, Marty (see blog post, Marty the Movie); 1971, Best Original Screenplay, The Hospital; and 1976, Best Original Screenplay, Network.

"You American-haters bore me to tears, Miss Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-Cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Miss Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Miss Barham, to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-Cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town."

"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 in this war, we've managed to butcher 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."

"I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham.  It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is.  It's always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade. We shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on the ministers and generals, or warmongering imperialists, or all the other banal bogeys. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices."

"I don't want to know what's good, or bad, or true. I let God worry about the truth. I just want to know the momentary facts about things. Life isn't good, or bad, or true. It's merely factual, it's sensual, it's alive. My idea of living sensual facts are you, a home, a country, a world, a universe. In that order. I want to know what I am, not what I should be."

"Well, you're a good woman.  You've done the morally right thing.  God save us from all the people who do the morally right thing.  It's always the rest of us who get broken in half.  I want you to remember that the last time you saw me, I was unregenerately eating a Hershey bar."

Garner and Andrews enjoyed working together so much they did it twice more:  1982, Victor/Victoria (a musical comedy about a woman pretending to be a female impersonator) and 1999, One Special Night (a made for TV movie about a widow and a widower who take refuge together in an abandoned cabin one stormy winter evening).