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.

1967 - TOBRUK old fashioned war film.

"Come on guys, we gotta sneak behind enemy lines and blow up Rommel's fuel dump at Tobruk, but watch out there is a traitor in our group."

The cast of Tobruk is the usual dependable bunch of mid 60's actors.  Rock Hudson is the reluctant volunteer who leads the team of British soldiers on their secret mission.  George Peppard is the German Jew who helps him.  Nigel Green plays Nigel Green.

Tobruk was photographed in the Spanish desert by Russell Harlan, who usually worked with Howard Hawks.  It's a good looking film.  The director was Arthur Hiller who seems like an odd choice for a war film  Hiller is known for films like Love Story or The In-Laws.

The film is probably remembered if it needs to be remembered at all,  for it's large scale action scenes which are very impressive.  Lots of stuff blows up.

Tobruk is the parent of that bastard child of a film Raid on Rommel, which starred Richard Burton.  Raid on Rommel "borrowed" the action sequences from this film for that film.

107 minutes, written by Leo Gordon