The Americanization of Emily, 1964. Directed by the hack Arthur Hiller, written by the decidedly unhackneyed Paddy Chayefsky. Starring James Garner, Julie Andrews, James Coburn, Melvyn Douglas, Joyce Grenfell and one of the great character actors, Keenan Wynn (most famous as Major Bat Guano in Dr. Strangelove).
When Paddy Chayefsky died in 1981 of cancer (he was young, just 58), the world lost one of its greatest screenwriters, and certainly Hollywood’s foremost satirist. Chayefsky’s career was fascinating, moving from such chest-pounding dramas as Marty (a piece that works both as the searing television drama and the somewhat saccharine film version) to some mind-blowing comedies that skewer some of America’s favorite sacred cows: the military in Americanization, the medical establishment in The Hospital, and television news in Network. That last sentence is a horrible summary of that trinity, for The Americanization of Emily is not just about tripping up the stuffed shirts of the Navy–Chayefsky pokes fun at war widows, at the noble dead, at subjects that no one has been willing to touch since then. That The Americanization of Emily is a severly flawed and poorly cast film doesn’t take away from the fact that we live in an age that needs a Chayefsky… though I’m not sure we’re equipped to understand his films anymore. All we can do is laugh.
The facts: James Garner plays Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison, a ‘dog-runner’ for Admiral William ‘Jessie’ Jessup (played with gusto by now-underrated actor Melvyn Douglas). These ‘dog-runners’ procure all varieties of contraband for their leaders. In war-torn London, a city beseiged by Germans and the harshness of rationing, Charlie Madison has a hotel room filled with Hershey bars, fine liquor, dresses of silk and nylon, and avocados, among much, much more. To get what he needs, he’ll take on an Alabama accent, bribe officials with whiskey, and threaten others with deportment to the Antarctic if they fail to deliver, say, dry-aged steaks for Adm. Jessup.
The film takes place in the month before D-Day, and Adm. Jessup is slowly going mad from the pressure and gets it into his mind to make a film about the Navy’s role in D-Day. Even better, he wants the first casualty of the invasion to be a Navy man, and in Washington they’ll erect a tomb of the Unknown sailor.
Charlie doesn’t give a rip about any of this. A self-proclaimed coward, he works alongside Bus Cummings, securing food and drinks and girls for the brass. Bus is played with manic intensity by James Coburn, and he’s easily the best thing in this picture. Coburn is incredible, jumping around, trying to screw every English girl he can lay his hands on, and then veering wildly into patriotic fanaticism with the drop of a hat, and totally convincing. Charlie, on the other hand, slowly falls in love with Emily, played by Julie Andrews and doing her usual ice-queen schtick.
Emily is a real casualty of war: her brother, father, and husband all died in World War II. She is priggish and unable to enjoy much of the bounty Charlie tries to deliver, but eventually they do fall in love. And along the way, Charlie gets wrapped up in making Jessup’s mad film about D-Day–an act that will eventually have serious repercussions for everyone.
The Americanization of Emily was a turning point for Chayefsky, who, along with Charlie Kaufman, is the only screenwriter in Hollywood history whose work consistently overshadows the director. With Emily we can see the transition from a guy with a somewhat ham-fisted view of relationships–the courtship between Garner and Andrews veers on embarrassing–and into the edgy dialogue that would later typefy his work… although it took until The Hospital for Chayefsky to incorporate his barbs into a working script, as there are numerous speeches that bring Emily to a grinding halt, even if they are thought-provoking (such as the suggestion that cowardice is better for humanity than bravery). There’s also scene after scene of free-swingin’ early 60s humor, such as daffy girls who stand at attention buck-naked while Garner and Coburn yak on. It’s a man’s picture, certainly, offensive to intelligent women like so many of that era’s pictures.
The Americanization of Emily, along with Preston Sturges’ Hail the Conquering Hero, are two films that I think everyone could stand to watch today, as they were brave commentaries on our response to soldiers and war, and our tendency to hero-worship (though if you had to choose one, definitely go with Hail, thus far tragically unavailable on DVD). These movies would also make lovely remakes–if you could find a decent screenwriter unwilling to yank their teeth. Though Emily ends on a soft note–Chayefsky wouldn’t pull out all the stops until a few years later–there is still enough barbed wire to leave an audience bloodied with humor we could stand to hear today.
But I wonder: would we even care? Would we be shocked, alarmed? When Chayefsky wrote Emily, and The Hospital and Network, he did so to entertain, to make people laugh, to make them think. I believe it was David Thomson who argued that films in the 70s were cynical because we were still somewhat innocent. We could see Network and the Parallax View and still have some faith that our system would work, and our values prevail. In an era where we get The Onion each week, where “The Daily Show” is seen as a legitimate alternative to news, would a new Americanization of Emily move us? Or would it just be another comedy, a night at the suburban stadium theater, or a self-congratulatory evening at at the Lagoon? If we don’t get mad as hell anymore, what good is satire?
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