The Americanization of Emily

Year: 1964
Genre: Comedy
Directed: Arthur Hiller
Stars: James Garner, Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas, James Coburn, Joyce Grenfell, Edward Binns, Liz Fraser, Keenan Wynn, William Windom, John Crawford
Production: MGM

Paddy Chayefsky should be a well-known figure to modern cinema aficionados. Not only did he accurately predict tabloid TV journalism in Network (1976), our dysfunctional healthcare system in The Hospital (1971) and Clint Eastwood’s psychosis in Paint Your Wagon (1969), he was also nominated for a Best Writing Oscar four times, winning three of those times. The only other person with more Screenplay prowess and a tied record is the brilliant Woody Allen.

War man...it's so, like, whoa!

Even less attention is given to his Middle of the Night (1959) follow-up The Americanization of Emily (1964) a movie so pitch black and anti-war that I’m surprised there weren’t riots in the street at the movie’s premiere. Though I suppose in a year that gave us Dr. Strangelove (1964), Fail-Safe (1964) and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a movie about a self-professed coward avoiding war isn’t entirety out of place. Is it safe to say that Chayefsky also predicted Vietnam protests?

The Americanization of Emily starts with a cheeky dedications to dog robbers i.e. adjutant Lieutenants whose job is to procure luxury goods and other treasured items for high-ranking officers. 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.

Oh hell no!

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.

Perfectly content with a life of cowardice and alarmed at the logic behind his mission, Charlie pulls off all the stops to keep him out of harms way. His behavior puts him at odds with Emily, his friends, his superiors, nearly everyone who comes in contact with him. Yet Charlie is far from a weak ineffectual character. He positively exudes cynicism and opportunism as if it was engrained and as a result it’s hard not to like him. In fact, his justification for his yellow streak is near-noble. “War isn't hell at all. It's man at his best; the highest morality he's capable of…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, its virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.” Wow; and that at a time when we were fighting Adolf Hitler.

I'm sure this guy would have been very
receptive to the whole no war thing.

Yet The Americanization of Emily isn’t about WWII, it’s about all war in general and indicts everyone from the Generals who make the decisions to the widows at home who sanctify the valor of a soldiers sacrifice. It’s a screenplay that emanates pure bile yet can’t help but be savored by the pessimists in all of us. It also helps that the movie as a whole is hilarious.

The anti-Mary Poppins. Just look at that frown

That and the film relies on the romance between Charlie and Emily to sweeten the bitter pill. In the first few scenes Julie Andrews plants herself as a capable and immediately likeable actor capable of absolute magic. Released the same year as Mary Poppins (1964), The Americanization of Emily presents Andrews as a polar opposite of Poppins. She’s no shrinking violet and certainly not a magical nanny who nourishes children with spoons full of sugar. She can be downright cold in Emily; cold yet relatable.

Also worth mentioning is the work of James Coburn as Charlie’s friend who only because of nearsightedness cannot join the war effort. He feels he might makes up for it by volunteering for the mission to make propaganda and pushes Charlie to do the same to the point of madness. Yet he isn’t beyond bedding amiable British women and taking full advantage of his “disability” and connections. In addition Melvyn Douglas’s performance as the senile Admiral, whom Charlie keeps, is a little unbelievable at times but nevertheless is pretty entertaining.

Chayefsky was hipster before it was cool

The Americanization of Emily is a subversive cinematic gem that arraigns the entire idea of war by highlighting inefficiencies, hypocrisies, inadequacies and downright lunacies (not to mention the horrors of real actual fighting). Paddy Chayefsky died in 1981 after being diagnosed with cancer leaving a legacy of superb films, TV programs and literature. A true cynic until the end, he refused treatment due to fear of retribution by doctors who saw The Hospital. Not since Diogenes of Sinope was there a man like Chayefsky nor will there ever be another for a good long time.

Final Grade: A