NFR Project: 'Sergeant York' (1941)

 

NFR Project: “Sergeant York”

Dir: Howard Hawks

Scr: Harry Chandlee, Abem Finkel, John Huston, Howard E. Koch

Pho: Sol Polito

Ed: William Holmes

Premiere: July 2, 1941

134 min.

He was a modern Cincinnatus – a man who left his plow to go to war and then returned quietly to it. Alvin York was a real person, one awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery above and beyond the call of duty during the First World War. In a single engagement, he killed 20 German soldiers and captured 132 more. By himself.

Oddly, though, he was initially a pacifist, and this film adaptation (and embroiderment on) the diaries of York takes great pains to mark the journey of a man from conscientious objector to war hero.

The film is both an epic and a spiritual journey. Howard Hawks directed, and his ingenious approach to the material is textbook Hollywood: the expansion of an ordinary person’s life into that of a mythic character. None other than Gary Cooper played York. Cooper’s aw-shucks demeanor and good looks, combined with his superb underplaying (in every scene he’s in he draws the eye because he’s listening fully) made him into an American icon. He personified the way America liked to think of itself. Who better to play the ultimate American warrior?

The film starts in backwoods Tennessee, where York rides around as a young ruffian, drinking hard liquor and shooting his initials into tree trunks. Walter Brennan is his minister, Margaret Wycherly, his impossibly stoic mother. He is cheated on a land deal, and goes to deal death to his opponent when he is literally struck by lightning, as was the Apostle Paul, and gets religion.

York feels that the Bible teaches that killing is wrong. When war comes, he tries to register as a conscientious objector, but is refused. He then goes into the service, willingly. He is launched into a mixed bag of fellow soldiers, who are bemused by his back woods ignorance. He then, practiced from shooting turkey in the hills, proves a dead shot and gets advanced to teach his skills, provoking the spiritual crisis within him that that is resolved by his settling on serving his country.

We are swept into the defining battle that made York’s reputation. Hawks stages war brilliantly, and this rendition of the Meuse-Argonne offensive of October of 1918 plays like the real thing. William Holmes’ Oscar-winning editing makes the battle scenes riveting. Cooper as York seems to be in touched with a special type of Providence as he advances through the bullet-pocked terrain alone, picking off men without a thought.

York is of course lauded for his actions, receives a parade, and get commercial offers. He turns thejm all down and goes home to Tennessee to marry his sweetheart (Joan Leslie). And everybody chips in and buys him that farm he always wanted. The End.

It’s a propaganda film. While this film opened in July, 1941, the Germans invaded Russia. England had fought the Battle of Britain the year previous. It seemed more and more apparent that the U.S. was going to go to war. The film espouses a deep devotion to the concept of the defense of American democratic principles. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” intones Cooper on a rocky crag overlooking his beloved valley as he reads the history of America. And like flicking a switch, he’s in for participating, and he does so in the most skillful way. He’s inspired. He doesn’t suffer a scratch.

And he comes home, and he’s the same nice guy he was when he left.  Unimpressed by the bright lights and big city, he returns to his country roots. He, a farmer, achieves acts of valor and gets everything he wants just for being so brave. And he doesn’t get hurt. It’s a loaded statement, a mythic statement.

This all is largely true, but it’s been sculpted to fit the exigencies of the Hollywood biography. It’s bound to have some fibs in it. But in real life, York was a hero and a good man; he used the proceeds from his movie deal to fund a Bible school in his home town.

Cooper is straight-up doing the will of God in this movie. He is a secular saint, all the more for being a spiritually redeemed character. He proves that you can be a Christian and a warrior at the same time – a message American audiences of the time were ready to hear.  It was a hit. Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor. It inspired men to enlist.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Sullivan’s Travels.