The Americanization of Emily (1964) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Jim Garner plays his typical role as the world's biggest coward, but he is somehow chosen to lead the project with a camera on his shoulder, and fate strikes the final blow against him when an explosion near a landing craft hurtles him through the air, vaulting him ahead of the waders, and making him the very first American on Omaha Beach. He then becomes the very first dead American in the invasion, strengthens the navy's credibility, and lands himself on the cover of Life Magazine and 200 newspapers. The Navy's publicist (James Coburn) fails to mention that Garner was running in the wrong direction at the time - back out to sea - and that Garner's first wound was inflicted by Coburn's gun. Hey, it was the only way to get the guy back on the beach.

Garner later turns out to have been wounded, not killed, and this turns out to be a crisis for the Navy. Will Garner tell the truth about the incident, or will be pretend to be a hero for the good of ... ??

The Americanization of Emily is an odd footnote in the history of films. Although this is arguably the greatest script ever written by a three-time Oscar winner (Paddy Cheyefsky), and is probably the greatest film ever directed by film veteran Arthur Hiller, it has passed into obscurity.

Why? Well, timing is everything.

First of all, it's an anti-war comedy which got shunted aside by being released in the same year as the greatest anti-war comedy ever made (Dr. Strangelove).

Second, it made irreverent fun of the wrong war. If it had gone after the Cold War or the Korean War, or if it had come out five years later and had gone after the Vietnam War, it might be remembered as a classic. Unfortunately, it not only went after the hallowed ground of Omaha Beach, but it did so in 1964, when the men who stormed that beach were still only in their forties, some even in their thirties. The film ridiculed the pervasive glorification of war, and perhaps justly so, but many felt, and many still feel, that WW2 is one war that really should have been glorified.  If The Americanization of Emily had been true, or even if it had been mostly true, it would be possible to defend it vigorously as a story that needs to be known. But it is not true. It is entirely fictional and uses the Normandy Invasion as a backdrop for contrived farce. Even after all these years, my subconscious still wants that day and that war to be sacrosanct, a just campaign of appropriate response to unavoidable fascist aggression. Frankly, it's hard for me to accept D-Day as a wacky setting for comedy, although I can force those feelings into a deeper recess of my brain and appreciate the brilliance of this script, which is deeply cynical and highly intelligent, as Chayefsky's work usually is.

The only real objective weakness of the film is the same weakness you will find in every one of Chayefsky's plays and screenplays - his characters make long, unrealistic, cock-sure speeches; or engage in dialogue too witty and clever to be anything but the contrived words of a playwright. It's usually witty material, often brilliant and original, but obviously phony. That always lends Chayefsky's work an artificial quality, as if the characters were stand-up comics waiting to deliver polished monologues, or comedy teams waiting to deliver some rehearsed and flawlessly timed nightclub rapport. It's my belief that the staginess of the dialogue isn't as oppressive in this film as in some of Chayefsky's projects. More rhetorical actors like George C. Scott, Faye Dunaway, and Peter Finch have had problems with Chayefsky's words in various other films, often sounding like participants in high school oratory contests, but Jim Garner has a kind of down-to-earth familiarity that breathes some life into the dialogue and makes it seem more like extemporaneous human speech.