The Americanization of Emily
Tags: anti war

Plot synopsis:
Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (James Garner), United States Naval Reserve, is a cynical and highly efficient adjutant to Rear Admiral William Jessup (Melvyn Douglas) in London in 1944. Madison's job as a dog robber is to keep his boss and other high-ranking officers supplied with luxury goods and amiable Englishwomen. He falls in love with a driver from the motor pool, Emily Barham (Julie Andrews), who has lost her husband, brother, and father in the war. Madison's pleasure-seeking "American" lifestyle amid wartime rationing both fascinates and disgusts Emily, but she does not want to lose another loved one to war and finds the "practicing coward" Madison irresistible.
Profoundly despondent since the death of his wife, Jessup obsesses over the US Army and its Air Force overshadowing the Navy in the forthcoming D-Day invasion. The mentally unstable admiral decides that "The first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor". A combat film will document the death, and the casualty will be buried in a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor". He orders Madison to get the film made.
Despite his best efforts to avoid the duty, Madison and his now gung-ho friend, Commander "Bus" Cummings (James Coburn), find themselves and a film crew with the combat engineers, who will be the first sailors ashore. When Madison tries to retreat from the beach, the manic Cummings shoots him in the leg with a Browning .45 pistol. A German artillery shell lands near the limping-running Madison, making him the first American casualty on Omaha Beach. Hundreds of newspaper and magazine covers reprint the photograph of Madison running ashore, alone (in reality trying to escape from Cummings), making him a war hero. Jessup, having recovered from his breakdown, is horrified by his part in Madison's death. He makes plans to use the heroic death in support of the Navy when testifying before a Senate committee in Washington, D.C. Losing another man she loves to the war devastates Emily.
Then comes unexpected news: Madison is not dead but alive and well and at the Allied 6th relocation center in Southampton. A relieved Jessup plans to show him off during his Senate testimony as the "first man on Omaha Beach", a sailor. Madison, limping from his injury and angry about his senseless near-death, uncharacteristically plans to act nobly by telling the world the truth about what happened, even if it means being imprisoned for cowardice. Emily persuades him through his earlier spoken words to her to instead choose happiness with her by keeping quiet and accepting his role as a hero.

Review: Garner does a fine job in communicating the role of an outwardly selfish and uncaring man struggling hard to suppress his principles.Julie Andrews' Emily is just the person to bring those principles out.
I watched the DVD this weekend and was happy to find that the film still seemed fresh and had aged very well.Watching this movie reminds one of why James Garner and Julie Andrews became stars.
Unlike most WWII movies of this era, this movie wasn't afraid to take a dark but witty look at military establishment.James Coburn character takes seriously a delusional Admiral (the great Melvin Douglas) who conceives of a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor" Coburn assigns a devoutly un-heroic James Garner to storm Normandy Beach to film and retrieve the body of the first sailor killed on D-Day. In an unforgettable scene, a very intoxicated Keenan Wynne is assigned to the project and responds by saying "I may be drunk, but I'm not THAT drunk!".The writing and dialog are some of the most intelligent and clever that you will ever see in a movie.
Near the end of the movie, Julie Andrew gives a brilliant speach that takes Garner's anti-heroic philosophy and spins it back to him in a clever and unexpected way..
Once again, it's not to his liking.Garner and Andrews get good support from the supporting cast consisting of James Coburn, William Windom, Joyce Grenfell and Melvyn Douglas as the battle fatigued admiral who's Garner's boss and who got him in the situation described.
But here I am, finishing my second viewing of this movie on back-to-back nights, and with great pleasure I can say that The Americanization of Emily is not a simple anti-war film.
Chayefsky knows that, and shows us that war will change all it touches, from the simple Emily (Julie Andrews), a kind, intelligent, sensitive single English woman to the devil-may-care scrounger', Lt Cmdr Charles Madison  (James Garner-somewhat a reprise of his role in The Great Escape).This movie is a romance, and a serious examination of people over-matched by forces outside their control, who struggle to do everything in their control to find their way.A well-told story, skillfully delivered.
Together, they not only spark romantically but also trade speeches of barbed cynicism making Chayefsky's words fly off the page with supple dexterity.Screen stalwart Melvyn Douglas is a terrifically befuddled blowhard as Jessup, while an especially energetic James Coburn aggressively turns "Buzz" into a monomaniacal yes-man.
Madison (the role was originally offered to William Holden, while James Garner was considered for the part of "Bus" Cummmings played by James Coburn) , he has a talent for living the good life in wartime that is challenged when he falls in love and is sent on a dangerous mission .
But when his Admiral (Melvyn Douglas) suffers a nervous breakdown , it leads to Charlie being sent on a senseless and risked mission dealing with a master plan to have American naval soldier first Normandy with predictable results .This cynical war comedy contains drama , humor , emotion and romance .
Top-of the-range stellar cast who gives magnificent acting as James Garner who is splendid as a coward sponger who takes his life as smooth and risk-free as possible for himself ; Garner always says that this is his favorite of his movies and an attractive Julie Andrews who is frankly well .
James Garner and Julie Andrews and the rest of the cast are great in The Americanization of Emily.
Certainly, Garner's character is a real anti-hero with his cynical attitudes on the glories of war and how bravery isn't really worth much if it only results on more people wanting to fight battles they consider glamorous despite the real possibility of dying.
The entire cast, headed by James Garner & Julie Andrews shines in this tour-de-force revolved around a fictional story set in Great Britain during the D-Day invasion time period.
No gratuitous sex & violence scenes here as the real meat of this picture lies in the inherent subtlety of its message.My favorite scene, which to me encapsulates the real thread of this story, is the garden scene where James & Julie & especially Joyce Grenfell (Julie's screen mom here) totally lambast the phony pretexts of war in general in a most cutting & articulate fashion, due in no small part to Paddy Chayefsky's fabulous screenplay adaptation.Rather than list individual names, suffice it to say (again!) that the entire cast shone here in director Arthur Hiller's masterpiece, delicately augmented by a classic Johnny Mandel original soundtrack and his timeless rendering of the film's title song.
His position on war is stated clearly by the James Garner character in the amazing garden scene with Emily and her mother, who has been driven mad with grief over the loss of her husband, son-in-law, etc.
The lesson is delivered with a dose of levity that makes this movie all the more entertaining.Writer Paddy Chayefsky has scripted material custom-made for James Garner and Julie Andrews in the roles of Lt. Cmdr.
The two leading actors are supported by a strong cast that includes Melvyn Douglas, James Coburn, Joyce Grenfell and William Winton.Garner is the cynical aide to Admiral Jessup, played by Melvyn Douglas.
The movie seems especially apt for me, for my countrymen, because it is both funny and serious, and, set in England, it gives a pretty good sense of what a people who know war think and feel about it.I'm afraid I doubt that it's going to have much effect against the probably coming Iraq action, but I'd like to think it might have a bit.Both James Garner and Julie Andrews do well in the film, and Melvyn Douglas is real good as an American ranking Naval officer who's sane about the "glories of war".
So this film was a major surprise to me, an amazingly interesting examination of the American character, a trenchant satire, not on war itself, but on the glorification of war, a bitter screed about those in power who choose all kinds of reasons to send young men to death except the right ones--and it's a funny film, too, although when James Garner delivers a reasonable tirade about wartime death to a war widow in denial, I must admit to chagrin and then agreement: it's Paddy Chayevsky's brilliant script that makes this satire work--the direction is lackluster, the film a little too long, but it's probably more vital today than it was some forty years ago.
This kind of inept attention to detail fools only viewers who really haven't got a clue what they're looking at.Thirdly, the screenplay must be Paddy Chayefsky's worst - a self indulgent, preachy and fluffy satire that hasn't the faintest idea what it is exactly...a romantic comedy, a romantic drama, a farce or an anti war statement.
When James Coburn steals a film out from under the likes of Garner and Andrews you know it's bad..
He comes up with a scheme to make the first dead man on Omaha beach to be a sailor and sends Charlie off to the pointless suicide mission.For this movie, it's the Paddy Chayefsky screenplay that is the most important.
Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (James Garner) prides himself as the best of the dog robbers and dutifully manages and preens the not entirely commonsensical Admiral Jessup (Melvyn Douglas).
Emily Barham (Julie Andrews), a British subject and motor pool driver is at first disgusted by his demeanor and sybaritic lifestyle but grows to like and fall in love with him.With D-Day quickly approaching, Admiral Jessup has become preoccupied with the U.S. Army's Air Corps overshadowing his sailors and the Navy.
Seemingly in a daze, the Admiral looks to make a movie showing the first dead man on Omaha Beach to be a sailor and he recruits Madison and his Spartan friend Bus Cummings (James Coburn) to do the filming.
Supporting actors include Julie Andrews as Emily Barham, Melvyn Douglas as Adm. William Jessup, an Officer on the verge of 'cracking up.' James Coburn as Lt. Cmdr.
Charlie Madison, James Garner, is having a talk with his pretty British driver Emiley Barham's, Julie Andrews, widowed mom Mrs. Barham, Joyce Grenfell, that things in the film turn serious.
It was a strange combination of Charlie's commanding officer Adm. William Jessup, Melvyn Douglas, going insane and coming up with this "bright idea" of having the first American serviceman to be killed in action, at Omaha beach on D-Day, to be a Navy man as well as meeting, and falling in love with, Emiley Barham that turned his life around.
This made Charlie more conscious of what was happening all around him in WWII as well as made a better person out of Charlie in the end.Anti-war movie that chooses WWII, a war that everyone sees as a righteous war, that Paddy Chayefsky makes his statement about the horrors and futility of what war is and why we should never glorify it, righteous or unrighteous, like the unstable Adm. Jessup and his fanatical gong-ho aid Lt. Cmdr.
Bus Commings, James Coburn,try to make it in "The Americanization of Emily".Obsessed to make a movie on the beaches of France on D-Day Adm. Jessup has a film crew led by a very reluctant Charlie Madison to be the first Americans to storm the beaches with a Navy demolition crew.
Charlie sadly finds out to his shock and dismay, the next morning, that the invasion was called off for 24 hour, because of bad weather and was on the next day with him being assigned to the first assault landing boats in the invasion of Europe.Getting himself stone drunk with his two hand picked assistants, by the crazed Let, Cmdr Commings because they know something about how to use a movie camera, Navy men Keenen Whynn and Steve Franken Charlie is forced by Commings to make it on the beach, with the German Army blasting away from all sides as the movie camera rolls recording the historic event: the first American serviceman to be killed on D-Day. In the end Charlie instead of becoming a dead hero end's up a live coward which almost destroys all the hard work and energy that Adr. Jessup, who after coming to his senses realized how insane his idea was, and Let. Cmdr.
It's more a character study of two opposites who are given some great speeches to make about patriotism or the lack thereof by writer Paddy Chayefsky.Favorite moment: The rain scene where Garner and Andrews tell each other off in the classic manner of screwball comedy..
THE BEST OF Paddy Chayefsky,James Garner AND Julie Andrews.
In a country where the leaders are bereft of true morality, and only play 'Let's Pretend' to a nation of ignorant people, what else can you expect?This movie takes us back to that brief time when we were fighting for a just cause, fighting a war that could have been avoided...how, I'm not sure, since I haven't read those articles Garner spoke of.
James Coburn also contributes admirable support while Julie Andrews puts in a solid but unremarkable performance in the female lead.Hiller's direction is well handled and the film shows ample refinement.
"The Americanization of Emily" is about an unlikely romance between an incredibly jaded and pragmatic naval officer (James Garner) and a very patriotic Englishwoman (Julie Andrews).
In the early 1960s, Julie Andrews made three movies: "The Sound of Music," "Mary Popins," and "The Americanization of Emily." "...Emily" was the best!Set in 1945 London around the time of the D-Day invasion, James Garner plays the very American and very cowardly hero, as only James Garner can.
James Garner's "Dog Robber" character has figured out how to use and even beat the system, and he's darn proud of it.Julie Andrews plays Emily, the noble British war widow who's carrying on as best she can.
An Overlooked Gem. This was Julie Andrews second film and the first of three films that she and James Garner starred together in and it's easy to understand why it's both theirs favourite of their collaborations.Emily was pretty much overlooked in 1964 ,especially after Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music propelled Julie Andrews to musical stardom but this black and white edgy anti war satire written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Arthur Hiller is ,disguised in a romantic World War 2 love that has so many layers you can watch it again and again.The setting is London in the weeks leading up to the D Day Invasion and in 1964 was made during a wave of antinuclear and antimilitarist sentiment that also brought to the fore such films as Dr Strangeglove ,Fail Safe and Seven Days of May.Julie Andrews plays Emily Barham an attractive idealist quote "I believe in honour,service ,courage fair play and cricket" ,she is a driver for the Officers motor pool and has lost a husband ,brother and father in the war.James Garner plays Lt Commander Charles Edward Madison ,a cynical Naval Officer ,who has managed to dodge much War action by smooth talking and playing the system ,until the ageing Admiral he serves as "Dog Robber" decides as a PR.
coup The first dead man on Omaha Beach ,must be a sailor and assigns Charley to see that this happens.They fall in love with each other despite their core differences and the script cleverly manages through clever writing and a great supporting cast including Melvyn Douglas ,James Coburn ,Keenan Wynn and a superb appearance by Joyce Grenfell as Mrs Barham to avoid being over sentimental but but still romantic ,while at the same time hitting hard with the futile waste of human life and the underbelly of corruption and double standards that occur during any War.The Americanisation of Emily ,if you haven't seen it is a gem and must see for anyone who appreciates great skill in film making ,it also has a classic original score by Johnny Mandel and the title song Emily has been recorded by the greats Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett to mention a few ,it's probably better known than the film.
When Jessup gets the idea to sacrifice someone on the beach for Navy, Bus volunteers Charlie.Half 40s romance, half cynical satire Emily does an excellent job of presenting both themes fairly evenly through compartmentalizing with Coburn spelling Andrews to both debate and enter him into the fray without putting too much weight on Julie's shoulders to carry all of the discussion.Garner and Andrews make for an excellent pairing with Julie registering in this serious role between Sound and Poppins.
Coburn is his usual energized self with Douglas ditto gruff.The Americanization of Emily may not have the more accusatory tone towards the military that followed in the years ahead in anti war films.
With writing from from the greatest screenwriter of all time, Paddy Chayefsky, and the best acting of James Garner's career, this is one of my favorite movies of all time.With a strong supporting case in James Coburn and Julie Andrews, AND Melvyn Douglas (in perhaps the single best role he ever played.
Emily Barnham is (Julie Andrews at her prettiest) is his girlfriend, attracted to Charlie (Garner) because she believes that he really can pull off not being caught in World War II.
If one disregards the romantic involvement of Julie Andrews's character with James Garner's, this 1964 film bears a striking resemblance to Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove", also from the same year.
James Garner is great as the coward but goes on and on about how smart he is to be a coward and how stupid the rest of us are to go along with all the war jingoism.Julie Andrews is the co-star and very attractive but her character also feels the need to explain herself in oral essays.
Arthur Hiller directed this Paddy Chayefsky script that stars James Garner(Charles Madison) and James Coburn(Paul Cummings) as two Naval Lt. Commanders in WWII who like to live the good life(despite the grim war).
That first time I watch the film I cut it short right after Garner was "killed" on D Day, I felt the film tear at me and leave a bad taste in my mouth, reminiscent of "Paths Of Glory"; which made it a great movie to me.Later on (years later) I would catch this film again and, for whatever reason that happened, I saw the real ending of the film and it probably took it down a peg for me to see Garner alive after all; but I was happy one of my favorite war film characters made it out alive after being really KIA for me.Last night I re-watched it with my wife who is visiting me (the only thing good on is TCM (middle east) and they were showing it).
The scriptwriter Paddy Chayefsky must be given most of the credit for this, but both Julie Andrews and James Garner give superlative performances.
But I still agree with Paddy Chayefsky.Emily meets Charlie Madison and they immediately get into a discussion about the war and its morality.
James Coburn supports a talented supporting cast.This film sets up Garner in a character he plays often, a coward who is being asked to be a hero on D-Day. He naturally thinks the project is nuts as they want him to be the first on Omaha Beach with a camera.
Scripted by Paddy Chayefsky (from a novel by William Bradford Huie), James Garner is a cowardly admiral's aide in WWII London who gets mixed up with car pool member Julie Andrews and, despite his best efforts, finds himself landing in Normandy on D-Day. While the tone is definitely satiric and the film features a fair amount of laughs, it's also both harsh & unforgiving.
Not the typical American romantic comedy in the WWII, here are dense and sharp dialogue, with sarcastic characters ridiculing the noble art of war and argue in favor of cowardice as a form of pacifism (something really curious) and that makes the difference with others films of the same kind and gives that movie a special value, especially in the first half...
No one can doubt that "The Americanization of Emily" is an anti-war film.