The Americanization of Emily

What religious persuasion are you?”
“I’m a practicing coward”

Charlie Madison (James Garner) gives his ecclesiastical response to Mrs Barham (Joyce Grenfell)

Again, as part of my current film course, I find myself watching an old film classic…it’s a hard life.

This week I need to write a profile of an actor/writer/director from the world of film, and I’ve gone for Jim Garner.

In preparation I’m digging out some his stuff taped off the telly over the years, and tonight was 1964s The Americanization of Emily, directed by Arthur Hiller. This was on TCM a few years back and I haven’t watched it all the way through, until now.

Garner plays Charlie Madison, a “dog robber” for the US Navy. A dog robber’s duty is to his General, making sure all his needs are catered for, from Hershey bars to women.

Julie Andrews is the titular Emily, a soft-spoken driver for the army who meets Madison while on duty. After some toing and froing they end up “an item”.

Garner’s character is the kind he plays best: charming, smart and desperate to avoid seeing combat. Playing someone who’s simply a self declared coward would be dull, so it’s left to a sparkling script from Paddy Chayefsky to add another dimension to Madison.

This is never more apparent than in an early scene with Garner, Andrews and Joyce Grenfell as her mum. A scene that has gone down in film history as being one of the finest tirades against the military and war ever put on celluloid. I’m going to quote at length here, even though they should be seen and heard in context. This is Garner doing some of his best work:

War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of … it’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity.

So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war 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 – it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.

then after:

I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it’s always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades … we shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies.

It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows’ weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio – an everyday soldier’s death, no special heroism involved. They buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.

Powerful stuff. And that’s quite near the start, with a lot of other great moments to come.

This speech has been denounced by some critics as anachronistic – a 60s anti-war polemic placed in the mouths of 1940s characters who probably wouldn’t have been quite so cynical at the time.

That’s possibly true, but as a stance on the politics of war and the ultimate victims I tend to side with it.

There’s a lot more to praise about the film, including a great performance from James Coburn, Garner’s co-star from the previous year’s The Great Escape. And a fantastic twist ending that I didn’t predict…

The Garner-a-thon continues tomorrow night with How Sweet it Is, while the Garner/Andrews reunion, Victor/Victoria is on TCM tomorrow night – the movie gods are smiling on me.

DVD Watch: One result is that I’ve now gone and ordered Network, also written by Chayefsky, another film I’ve meant to watch for ages. It was going cheap…though a quick google tells me a Special Edition is out on Region 1 which I’ve missed…

Updated: 12 January 2008

I thought I’d add a clip from YouTube of the speech mentioned above:

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Damn BBC4 repeats of seminal 70s TV shows! Just as I was planning an early night after Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, on comes Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and I’m hooked.

I watched the series on DVD a couple of years back, and enjoyed every perfectly crafted second of the thing. So why would I want to stay up and watch it again?

Ian Richardson for one. I was surprised the announcer didn’t mention the sad death of Richardson the other week, offering this as a tribute of sorts – I might like to think that, they couldn’t possibly comment.

Ian Bannen for another. Watching him as Jim Prideaux, on assignment near the Czech-Austrian border, forced me to stick with the rest of the episode. (Three posts on this blog and Bannen is mentioned in two of them. There’s a theme here…).

Two fantastic actors in a cast of heavyweights too numerous to mention. So take a look at the cast list over at IMDB.

Of course the star of the piece is Alec Guinness as George Smiley, brought out of retirement to investigate rumours of rum doings at the higher levels of Britain’s Intelligence Service. Some lengthy scenes with Michael Jayston help fill us in on the background as Smiley is tangled further into the web.

I’ve been meaning to read John Le Carre’s books for years now…must get them on the reading list.

DVD Watch

I ordered The Third Man 2-discer today, going cheap over at HMV. Hywel Bennet’s appearance at the end of Tinker.. reminds me that series one of Shelley is out in a month or two, another for the list.

And Bernard Hepton pops up in the show as well, reminding me to move my Secret Army viewing up the list. I’ve had the Complete Series set since just before Christmas…

Sean Connery in The Hill

This weekend, as part of my Monday night film journalism course, I had to write a review of a Jean Moreau interview with Mark Cousins from a few years back.

I then decided to dig out my off-air VHS of Sean Connery’s Scene by Scene with Cousins from 1997. Taking place in the interviewer’s Edinburgh flat, Connery seemed at ease with the whole thing. Clips of his first Hollywood venture, Derby O’Gill and the Little People, brought a smile to his face and memories of having to memorise a song on the morning of filming.

Some scenes from Sidney Lumet’s The Hill were also shown, which Connery believes is his best film (sadly no clips were show from his other Lumet collaboration, the harrowing The Offence). Luckily BBC2 screened The Hill the same night as the interview, so I left it playing…

The film takes place in a World War II British disciplinary camp in the Libyan desert. Trooper Joe Roberts (Connery) is sent to the camp for disobeying orders and attacking his superior officer. He arrives to find a camp terrorised by Staff Sergeant Williams (Ian Hendry), with soldiers being made to run up and down the titular hill in the blazing sun.

I’ve watched The Hill a dozen or so times over the years, and every time it seems as fresh as the first. Made at the time of Bondmania, when Connery was more used to wearing a tuxedo than a beret, the film stands as evidence to naysayers who claim Edinburgh’s finest export cannae act. Watching him here, making sly comments to Williams while on parade, rounding on his cellmates or going head-to-head with the officers, is electrifying.

Another superb performance comes from Ian Bannen as Staff Sgt. Charlie Harris, the only compassionate officer in the camp. His anguished performance stands out from the others and I can’t quite decide whether he or Connery steal the most scenes.

With no music, it’s left to the actors and the director to set the tone for each scene. Watching each man try to cope with his surroundings is harrowing, not a word I’d use for many films (though the site of Connery in that nappie in Zardoz comes close). And that final scene…

Here’s hoping BBC4 repeat the Scene by Scene’s sometime soon.

Updated 21/01/08

I’ve just added a trailer for the film from YouTube.

Adventures in Primetime

“Television is a medium because it is seldom rare  nor well done.” Ernie Kovaks

“It’s the menace that everyone loves to hate but can’t seem to live without. ” Paddy Chayevsky

I love telly. Good telly. And films. And books.

While it’s great to talk to mates in the pub or colleagues at work about last nights TV, a new DVD or the latest movie on at the cinema, recently I’ve wanted to tell a few more people about them, get some more of my thoughts written down for posterity. Mostly I’ll talk about old and new telly, but the odd film might be thrown in for good measure.

While the majority of series I mention aren’t on primetime TV anymore, there’s a good chance that most of them once were, and that’s another reason for the blog – just ‘cos they’re old doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching again. Or for many people, for the first time.

So if anyone is inspired to buy the DVD or search out a repeat of anything mentioned on here, then I’ll have done my job!

Finally, the blog is dedicated to Mr James Garner, Legend of the West Bret Maverick in Maverick, The Scrounger in The Great Escape and LAs finest, Jim Rockford PI in The Rockford Files.

His work and style epitomise everything I like in my entertainment. Heroes that aren’t black or white, but black and grey. Characters that would rather talk their way out of a situation than fight (who would have the guts to fight someone with a gun in real life? A Garner character would rather leg it). Humour that is understated rather than puerile or OTT. And a bit of realism in amongst the nonsense makes for good entertainment.

And entertainment is what it’s all about. In amongst the 9-5, the mortgage, the council tax, the insurance payments, the blocked drains and the news (which is scarier than any horror movie these days) are the pints down the pub, the catch-up with mates, the bag of chips on the way home and the long lie on a Sunday. And the odd episode of a favourite TV show helps balance the other crap fed to us by multi-channel Britain…but that’s another post…