1964 - THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, an excellent romantic comedy about war

Given a good script, journeyman director Arthur Hiller could really shine.  With The Americanization of Emily, Hiller had the benefit of the writer Paddy Chayefsky.  In truth Chayefsky was probably more of the driving force behind this movie than the director.  You have to give credit to the producer Martin Ransohoff.  It was pretty gutsy to make an anti-war film during the Vietnam War but Ransohoff  never ducked tough and interesting projects.

During World War II,  James Garner is the navel procurement officer for an Admiral played by Melvyn Douglas.  He's good at finding the best food and women.  Garner is also an unrepentant coward.  He falls in love with a non singing Julie Andrews who plays a morally upstanding British driver for the military but not to upstanding she apparently doesn't have any trouble sleeping around.  

 

Anyway to get on with the story the Admiral decides that the first person to die on Omaha Beach during the D-Day Invasion should be an American sailor.  After a series of plot twists the cowardly Garner ends up on Omaha Beach.

 

The selling points in this film are the great Paddy Chavefsky speeches on war, romance and heroics.  They are almost a warmup for his films The Hospital and Network.

The film is well cast, James Garner was always a good comedian and it's probably Julie Andrews best not singing film if not her best film.  An excellent film.

The running time is 115 minutes.