Smoothly directed by Howard Hawks along Hollywood lines, the film is the biography -- or maybe "biography" -- of Alvin York, a hillbilly who engineered the survival of his unit and the capture of a massive number of Germans, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Historically it serves as an inoculation, giving the American audience of early 1941 just a touch of what it's like for the country to be at war, so that we can all get used to the idea.
The country was full of isolationists at the time, Lucky Lindbergh, an American hero, among them. Few people wanted to "pull England's chestnuts out of the fire" again in 1941. Besides, while war waged in Europe, where it had been going on for a couple of years, American business was doing rather well in producing weapons. They'd pulled that off for a full three years during World War I.
But many people, including President Roosevelt, saw war as ultimately inevitable and it looks like the Warner Brothers did too. This film reminded us that, although war may be hell, we win in the end, as usual.
But it's not a stupid movie by any means. The conflict between living peacefully and making war is presented starkly. Gary Cooper, as York, shows us a man who can be either dissolute and bitter or dedicated and honorable. (He's born again when lightning strikes his rifle and mule in Tennessee.) He's a conscientious objector who does everything possible to avoid the draft because killing is against his religion. The Army gives him an American history book and sends him back home to think things over. He jest studies hisself right up to the dead edge of yonder. Then a breeze ruffles the pages of his Bible and opens it to, "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and unto God those things that are God's." Bingo. He goes to war, excels with the Springfield '03 "rifle gun", and avenges the deaths of his friends by daring and marksmanship -- played partly for laughs, although the shootings would be funny most to boys under the age of fourteen. His behavior under fire and the capture of that horde of Germans is historically accurate though, and it was an astounding feat.
Back home they offer Cooper all kinds of rewards for endorsing products that will cure jock itch, dandruff, hangnails, or whatever, but he refuses to sell his name because he is not proud of the killing he did in France. He prefers to settle down quietly as a farmer in the hills with his family. This is also accurate. The guy must have been a demon of virtues. Joan Leslie provides the requisite love interest but I ain't so sartain she war necessary to thet there a-plot. He winds up happily with his sweetheart in a cottage covered with flowers and surrounded by a white picket fence in the idyllic hills, the kind of place that only exists in fantasies.
It's a rather long movie, and some parts are a little sketchy, especially those dealing with his initial introduction to the Army. But it doesn't drag. Hawks evokes the poverty of the Upland South in the early years of the last century without seeming to strain while doing so. Cooper's disappointment when his Herculean efforts to acquire bottom land fail is almost palpable. Cooper's varying moods are helped along by Max Steiner's sprightly song, which dips into a minor key while we witness misery on the screen.
Given its theme, its obviously pedantic intent, it ought to be dated and boring but it's not. It's a pretty good job.
Historically it serves as an inoculation, giving the American audience of early 1941 just a touch of what it's like for the country to be at war, so that we can all get used to the idea.
The country was full of isolationists at the time, Lucky Lindbergh, an American hero, among them. Few people wanted to "pull England's chestnuts out of the fire" again in 1941. Besides, while war waged in Europe, where it had been going on for a couple of years, American business was doing rather well in producing weapons. They'd pulled that off for a full three years during World War I.
But many people, including President Roosevelt, saw war as ultimately inevitable and it looks like the Warner Brothers did too. This film reminded us that, although war may be hell, we win in the end, as usual.
But it's not a stupid movie by any means. The conflict between living peacefully and making war is presented starkly. Gary Cooper, as York, shows us a man who can be either dissolute and bitter or dedicated and honorable. (He's born again when lightning strikes his rifle and mule in Tennessee.) He's a conscientious objector who does everything possible to avoid the draft because killing is against his religion. The Army gives him an American history book and sends him back home to think things over. He jest studies hisself right up to the dead edge of yonder. Then a breeze ruffles the pages of his Bible and opens it to, "Render unto Caesar those things that are Caesar's, and unto God those things that are God's." Bingo. He goes to war, excels with the Springfield '03 "rifle gun", and avenges the deaths of his friends by daring and marksmanship -- played partly for laughs, although the shootings would be funny most to boys under the age of fourteen. His behavior under fire and the capture of that horde of Germans is historically accurate though, and it was an astounding feat.
Back home they offer Cooper all kinds of rewards for endorsing products that will cure jock itch, dandruff, hangnails, or whatever, but he refuses to sell his name because he is not proud of the killing he did in France. He prefers to settle down quietly as a farmer in the hills with his family. This is also accurate. The guy must have been a demon of virtues. Joan Leslie provides the requisite love interest but I ain't so sartain she war necessary to thet there a-plot. He winds up happily with his sweetheart in a cottage covered with flowers and surrounded by a white picket fence in the idyllic hills, the kind of place that only exists in fantasies.
It's a rather long movie, and some parts are a little sketchy, especially those dealing with his initial introduction to the Army. But it doesn't drag. Hawks evokes the poverty of the Upland South in the early years of the last century without seeming to strain while doing so. Cooper's disappointment when his Herculean efforts to acquire bottom land fail is almost palpable. Cooper's varying moods are helped along by Max Steiner's sprightly song, which dips into a minor key while we witness misery on the screen.
Given its theme, its obviously pedantic intent, it ought to be dated and boring but it's not. It's a pretty good job.