Sergeant York (1941)

Sergeant York
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee et al based on the diary of Alvin C. York
1941/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#151 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Alvin: What we done in France, we had to do. And some as done it, didn’t come back, and that kind of thing ain’t for buying and selling.[/box]

The biography of the great World War  I hero manages to be individual and broadly patriotic at the same time.

Alvin C. York (Gary Cooper) was a hard-drinking hard-working troublemaker in the Tennessee hills until his religious conversion.  Even when liquored up, he is an expert sharpshooter.  Soon after his conversion, he is drafted.  Alvin believes that killing is against the Bible and applies for conscientious objector status with the help of his pastor (Walter Brennan).  His application is turned down because he does not belong to an organized religion with a traditional objection to war.  He obediently reports for basic training.  He is gradually convinced to go into combat and finally to kill numerous Germans in the Battle of the Argone forest and take many more prisoner almost single-handed.  With Margaret Wycherly as Mother York, Joan Leslie as the love of his life and George Tobias, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., and Howard Da Silva in character parts.

This movie has some wonderful performances, most notably that of Gary Cooper, for which the part seems to have been written.  It plays on both Cooper’s shy boyish charm and tough masculinity.

The DVD I rented had an excellent commentary.  According to this, the film was a key target in the Senate investigation of whether Hollywood was producing films to involve the United States in World War II before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Warner Bros. was strongly in favor of American involvement in the war and the film, in fact, was seen as a way to stir up support.  However, Warners could also honestly tell the subcommittee  that it was an absolutely true story of one man.  The film went on to become the highest grossing film of 1941 and one of the highest grossing films of all time in 1941 dollars.

Gary Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor for this film and William Holmes won for Best Film Editing.   Sergeant York was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Walter Brennan), Best Supporting Actress (Margaret Wycherly), Best Original Screenplay, Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Sol Polito), Best Black-and-White Art Direction, Best Sound Recording; and Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture (Max Steiner).  Incredibly, this was Hawkes’s only nomination for an Oscar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jkNDgel8C0

Re-release trailer