{{short description|1964 black comedy war film written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Arthur Hiller}}
{{Infobox film
| name = The Americanization of Emily
| image = Americanization of Emily poster.jpg
| border = yes
| caption = Theatrical release poster by [[Reynold Brown]]
| director = [[Arthur Hiller]]
| producer = [[Martin Ransohoff]]
| screenplay = [[Paddy Chayefsky]]
| based_on = {{based on|''The Americanization of Emily'' 1959 novel|[[William Bradford Huie]]}}
| starring = {{Plainlist|
* [[James Garner]]
* [[Julie Andrews]]
* [[Melvyn Douglas]]
}}
| music = [[Johnny Mandel]]
| cinematography = [[Philip H. Lathrop]]
| editing = Tom McAdoo
| studio = [[Filmways]]
| distributor = [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]
| released = {{Film date|1964|10|27|US|1965|04|15|UK<ref>''The Times'', 15 April 1965, page 17: Film review of ''The Americanization of Emily'' – found via The Times Digital Archive</ref>}}
| runtime = 115 minutes
| country = United States
| language = English
| budget = $2.7 million<ref name="marty">{{cite news|author=Haber, J.|date=Jan 14, 1968|title='Baggy pants' ransohoff changes suits, image|work=Los Angeles Times|id={{ProQuest|155791666}}}}</ref>
| gross = $4,000,000 (rentals)<ref>"Big Rental Pictures of 1965", ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'', 5 January 1966, pg 6.</ref>
}}

'''''The Americanization of Emily''''' is a 1964 American [[romance film|romantic]] [[black comedy]] [[war film]], written by [[Paddy Chayefsky]], directed by [[Arthur Hiller]], and starring [[James Garner]], [[Julie Andrews]], and [[Melvyn Douglas]]. The [[black-and-white]] film also features [[James Coburn]], [[Joyce Grenfell]], and [[Keenan Wynn]].

Chayefsky's screenplay was loosely adapted from the 1959 novel of the same name by [[William Bradford Huie]], who had been a [[Seabee]] officer during the [[Normandy Invasion]]. The film is set in London during World War II in the weeks leading up to [[D-Day]] in June 1944.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=B0IEAAAAMBAJ&dq=William+Bradford+Huie+%2B+d+day&pg=PA47 Life Magazine, 9 October 1944, article by Huie: ''SeaBees – They Build the Roads to Victory''] Linked 2013-08-09</ref>

Controversial for its stance during the dawn of the [[Vietnam War]], the film has since been praised as a "[[Avant-garde|vanguard]] anti-war film".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1184%7C0/The-Americanization-of-Emily.html|title=The Americanization of Emily|last=Feaster|first=Felicia|publisher=Turner Classic Movies, Inc.|access-date=February 26, 2017}}</ref> Both James Garner<ref>{{cite web |url=http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:ORLB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=0ED904064C0FA190&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=11ECDBF131F44C689BB0EDBA11D99EE0 |title=Easygoing Garner Gets Nice Salute: Turner Classic Movies Honors the Star with a Review of His Career and by Showing 18 of His Movies|work=The Orlando Sentinel |first=Hal |last=Boedeke |date=July 29, 2001}}</ref><ref name="Charlie Rose">[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8844857220560459276 James Garner of Charlie Rose, ~6' from beginning]</ref> and Julie Andrews<ref name="Charlie Rose"/><ref>Blank, Ed. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:NewsBank:PTRB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=10DF57ABA3241800&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=11ECDBF131F44C689BB0EDBA11D99EE0 ''Andrews as Maria a result of 'happy circumstances' '']. ''Pittsburgh Tribune-Review''. 17 November 2005.</ref> have considered the film their personal favourite of those in which they acted.

==Plot==
Lt. Commander Charlie Madison is a cynical and highly efficient [[adjutant]] to Rear Admiral William Jessup. Charlie's job is to keep his boss and similar serving officers supplied with everything needed, including luxury goods and amiable women. He falls in love with a driver from the motor pool, Emily Barham, who has lost her husband, brother, and father in the war. Charlie's pleasure-seeking "American" lifestyle amid wartime rationing both fascinates and disgusts Emily, but she does not want to lose another loved one to war and finds the "practicing coward" Charlie irresistible.

Profoundly despondent since the death of his wife, Jessup obsesses over the United States Army and its Air Force overshadowing the Navy in the forthcoming D-Day invasion. The admiral decides that "The first dead man on Omaha Beach must be a sailor". A combat film will document the death, and the casualty will be buried in a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor". He orders Charlie to get the film made.

Despite his best efforts to avoid the assignment, Charlie and his now gung-ho friend, Commander "Bus" Cummings, find themselves and a makeshift two-man film crew aboard ship with the combat engineers, who will be the first sailors ashore. When Charlie tries to retreat from the beach, Cummings shoots him in the leg with his Colt .45 pistol. A German artillery shell lands near the limping-running Charlie, making him the first American casualty on [[Omaha Beach]]. Hundreds of newspaper and magazine covers reprint the photograph of Charlie running, alone, making him a war hero. Having recovered from his breakdown, Jessup is horrified by his part in Charlie's death. He plans, however, to use the death in support of the Navy's upcoming appropriations while testifying before the Senate's joint military affairs committee. Emily is devastated to have lost another person she loves to the war.

Then comes unexpected news: Charlie is alive and now at the Allied 6th Relocation Center in [[Southampton, England]]. A relieved Jessup plans to show him off during his Senate testimony as the "first man on Omaha Beach", a ''sailor''. Limping from his injury and angry about his senseless near-death, Charlie plans to act nobly by telling the world the truth about what really happened, even if it means being imprisoned for cowardice while facing the enemy. By recounting to him what he had said to her previously, Emily is able to persuade Charlie to choose happiness with her instead, and to keep quiet and accept his new, unwanted role as a hero.

==Cast==
{{col-begin|width=60%}}{{col-break}}
* [[James Garner]] as Lt. Cmdr. Charles "Charlie" E. Madison
* [[Julie Andrews]] as Emily Barham
* [[Melvyn Douglas]] as Admiral William Jessup
* [[Paul Newlan]] as Gen. William Hallerton
* [[James Coburn]] as Lt. Cmdr. Paul "Bus" Cummings
* [[Joyce Grenfell]] as Mrs. Barham
* [[Keenan Wynn]] as Old Sailor
* [[Edward Binns]] as Admiral Thomas Healy
* [[Liz Fraser]] as Sheila
{{col-break}}
* [[William Windom (actor)|William Windom]] as Captain Harry Spaulding
* [[John Crawford (actor)|John Crawford]] as Chief Petty Officer Paul Adams
* [[Douglas Henderson (actor)|Douglas Henderson]] as Captain Marvin Ellender
* [[Edmon Ryan]] as Admiral Hoyle
* [[Steve Franken]] as Young Sailor
* [[Alan Sues]] as Petty Officer Enright
* [[Judy Carne]] as "2nd Nameless Broad"
* [[Sharon Tate]] as "Beautiful Girl" (uncredited)
* [[Red West]] as Soldier (uncredited)
{{col-end}}

==Production==

===Casting===
According to [[James Garner]], [[William Holden]] was originally meant to play the lead role of Charlie Madison, with Garner to play Bus Cummings. When Holden backed out of the project, Garner took the lead role and James Coburn was brought in to play Bus.<ref>Garner, James & Winokur, Jon ''The Garner Files: A Memoir'' Simon & Schuster; First Edition (November 1, 2011)</ref> [[Lee Marvin]] is mentioned as starring in the movie instead of Coburn in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's promotional film ''MGM Is on the Move!'' (1964)<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_eUNEl3BMY ''MGM Is on the Move!'', 1964 (segment starts at 4:55) – YouTube (via Wolf TV-Video).] Retrieved August 4, 2022.</ref>

===Soundtrack===
The film introduced the song "[[Emily (1964 song)|Emily]]", composed by [[Johnny Mandel]] with lyrics by [[Johnny Mercer]]. It was recorded by [[Frank Sinatra]] with [[Nelson Riddle]] arranging and conducting on October 3, 1964 and was included on the Reprise LP ''[[Softly, as I Leave You (album)|Softly, as I Leave You]]''. It was later recorded by [[Andy Williams]] for ''[[Dear Heart (Andy Williams album)|Dear Heart]]'' (1965) and by [[Barbra Streisand]] for ''[[The Movie Album (Barbra Streisand album)|The Movie Album]]'' (2003).

===Fashion===
The women's hairstyles, dress fashions, makeup, and shoes seen in the film have been criticized for being appropriate for 1964, not 1944.<ref>{{Citation|title=The Americanization of Emily (1964) - IMDb|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057840/goofs/|access-date=2021-05-24}}</ref>

===Filming===
The hotel suite party scene was filmed on November 22, 1963, the same day as [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|President John F. Kennedy's assassination]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Americanization of Emily (1964) - IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057840/|access-date=2021-05-24|website=www.imdb.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

==Comparison with the novel==
[[Image:Americanizationofemily.jpg|right|thumb|160px|Cover of the novel]]
''The Americanization of Emily'' is based on [[William Bradford Huie]]'s 1959 novel of the same name.<ref name=huie>{{cite book|title=The Americanization of Emily|first=William Bradford|last=Huie|publisher=E. F. Dutton & Co., Inc.|id=Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-5060}} "'Has Pat been Americanized?' ... 'She carries a diaphragm in her kit-bag'", p. 23; Strawberries "too forbidden, too expensive", p. 31; "this dress... came from Saks Fifth Avenue in the diplomatic pouch", p. 54; "Whoring is a peacetime activity", p. 102; "how can I know whether I love you for yourself or for the strawberries?" p. 104.</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' ran a brief news item mentioning Huie's novel prior to its publication,<ref>"Books—Authors", ''The New York Times'', July 14, 1959, p. 27: "'The Americanization of Emily, William Bradford Huie's new novel, will be published Aug. 12 by Dutton.... It gives a picture of the war in London in 1944 as carried on from hotel suites with the help of good food, good liquor, expensive presents, and expensive-looking women".</ref> but never reviewed it,<ref>Online search of NYT archives for "huie" and "emily"</ref> although in 1963 [[Paddy Chayefsky]]'s development of the novel into a screenplay was found worthy of note.<ref name=chayefsky>Weiler, A. H. "Movie Panorama from a Local Vantage Point, ''The New York Times'', April 7, 1963, p. X15</ref> A first draft of the film's screenplay was written by [[George Goodman]], who previously had a success at MGM with ''[[The Wheeler Dealers]]'' (1963), also with James Garner as the male lead and with the same director and producer. In 1964, a [[Broadway theatre|Broadway musical]] with music written by [[John Barry (composer)|John Barry]] was announced.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=RhgvAQAAIAAJ&q=%22the+americanisation+of+emily%22+%2B+paddy Plays and Players, volume 16, page 10] Linked 2013-08-09</ref> Chayefsky's adaptation, while retaining the title, characters, situation, background and many specific plot incidents, told a very different story. He said, "I found the book, which is serious in tone, essentially a funny satire, and that's how I'm treating it."<ref name=chayefsky/>

The screenplay's theme of cowardice as a virtue has no parallel in the novel; in fact, the novel does not mention cowardice at all.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}

The screenplay implies, but never explicitly explains, what is meant by the term "Americanization". The novel uses "Americanized" to refer to a woman who accepts, as a normal condition of wartime, the exchange of her sexual favors for gifts of rare wartime commodities. Thus, in reply to the question "Has Pat been Americanized?", a character answers:
{{blockquote|Thoroughly. She carries a diaphragm in her kitbag. She has seen the ceilings of half the rooms in [[The Dorchester|the Dorchester [hotel]]]. She asks that it be after dinner: she doesn't like it on an empty stomach. She admits she's better after steak than after fish. She requires that it be in a bed, and that the bed be in [[Claridge's]], [[Savoy Hotel|the Savoy]], or the Dorchester.<ref name=huie/>}}

This theme runs throughout the novel. Another character says, "We operate [[Brothel#Military brothels|just like a whorehouse]] ... except we don't sell it for cash. We swap it for Camels [cigarettes] and nylons [stockings] and steak and eggs and lipstick ... this dress ... came from [[Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store|Saks Fifth Avenue]] in the [[Diplomatic bag|diplomatic pouch]]". Emily asks Jimmy, "Am I behaving like a whore?" Jimmy replies, "Whoring is a peacetime activity".<ref name=huie/>

The screenplay uses [[Hershey bar]]s to symbolize the luxuries enjoyed by Americans and their "Americanized" companions, but the novel uses strawberries.<ref name=huie/>

The novel briefly mentions that Emily's mother, Mrs. Barham, has been mentally affected by wartime stress, but she is not a major character. There is no mention of her self-deception or pretense that her husband and son are still alive. The film contains a long scene between Charlie and Mrs. Barham, full of eloquent antiwar rhetoric, in which Charlie breaks down Mrs. Barham's denial and reduces her to tears while insisting that he has performed an act of kindness. The novel has no parallel to this scene.

In the film, Charlie is comically unprepared to make the documentary film demanded by Admiral Jessup and is assisted only by bumbling drunken servicemen played by [[Keenan Wynn]] and [[Steve Franken]]. But in the novel, Charlie has been a [[public relations]] professional in civilian life, takes the assignment seriously, and leads a team of competent cinematographers.

==Reception==
===Critical===
In a contemporary review for ''[[The New York Times]]'', critic [[Bosley Crowther]] praised Chayefsky's screenplay as including "some remarkably good writing with some slashing irreverence".<ref>{{cite news|last=Crowther|first=Bosley|date=October 28, 1964|title='The Americanization of Emily' Arrives|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E02E7D91E3FEE32A2575BC2A9669D946591D6CF|access-date=February 4, 2017}}</ref>

''The Americanization of Emily'' has a 93% rating at the [[review aggregator]] website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], based on fourteen reviews, with an [[weighted arithmetic mean|average rating]] of 7.39/10.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/americanization_of_emily/|title=The Americanization of Emily (1964)|website=RottenTomatoes.com|access-date=July 17, 2019}}</ref> In ''[[Slant Magazine|Slant]]'' magazine, Nick Schager wrote, "Though a bit overstuffed with long-winded speeches, Chayefsky's scabrously funny script brims with snappy, crackling dialogue".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-americanization-of-emily|title=The Americanization of Emily|last=Schager|first=Nick|magazine=Slant|date=May 24, 2005|access-date=February 4, 2017}}</ref> In ''A Journey Through American Literature'', academic Kevin J. Hayes praised Chayefsky's speeches for Garner as "stirring".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZWBpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131|title=A Journey Through American Literature|page=131|last=Hayes|first=Kevin J.|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2011|isbn=978-0199862085}}</ref>

===Awards and honors===
The film was nominated for [[37th Academy Awards|Academy Awards in 1965]] for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography,<ref name="NY Times">{{cite web |url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/2073/The-Americanization-of-Emily/awards |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121018142302/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/2073/The-Americanization-of-Emily/awards |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-10-18 |department=Movies & TV Dept. |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=2012 |title=The Americanization of Emily |access-date=2008-12-25}}</ref> and in 1966 Julie Andrews' portrayal of Emily earned her a nomination for a [[BAFTA Award for Best British Actress]].<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057840/awards IMDb: ''Awards for The Americanization of Emily''] Linked 2013-08-09</ref>

''The Americanization of Emily'' was among the films selected for ''The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55qlWjbs14sC&pg=PA40|page=40|editor1-last=Nichols|editor1-first=Peter M.|editor2-last=Scott|editor2-first=A. O. Scott|publisher=Macmillan|date=2004|isbn=0312326114}}</ref>

==Home media==
''The Americanization of Emily'' was released on [[Blu-ray]] by [[Warner Bros. Home Entertainment|Warner Home Video]] on March 11, 2014 via their on-demand Warner Archive.{{Citation needed|date=October 2020}}

==See also==
* [[List of American films of 1964]]
* [[List of anti-war films]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
* {{AFI film|22969}}
* {{IMDb title|0057840}}
* {{TCMDb title|67267}}
* {{Amg title|2073}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|americanization_of_emily|The Americanization of Emily}}
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8844857220560459276&q=%22James+Garner%22+%22Charlie+Rose%22&total=4&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 James Garner Interview on the ''Charlie Rose Show''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080103073849/http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8844857220560459276&q=%22James+Garner%22+%22Charlie+Rose%22&total=4&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0 |date=2008-01-03 }}
* [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22archive+of+american+television+interview+with+james+garner%22 James Garner interview] at [[Archive of American Television]]

{{Operation Overlord}}
{{Arthur Hiller}}
{{Paddy Chayefsky}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Americanization Of Emily, The}}
[[Category:1964 films]]
[[Category:1964 comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:1964 romantic comedy films]]
[[Category:1960s English-language films]]
[[Category:American comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American romantic comedy films]]
[[Category:American war drama films]]
[[Category:Anti-war films about World War II]]
[[Category:Films based on American novels]]
[[Category:Films based on military novels]]
[[Category:Films directed by Arthur Hiller]]
[[Category:Films scored by Johnny Mandel]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Paddy Chayefsky]]
[[Category:Films shot at MGM-British Studios]]
[[Category:Films set in 1944]]
[[Category:Films set in London]]
[[Category:Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films]]
[[Category:Military humor in film]]
[[Category:Operation Overlord films]]
[[Category:War romance films]]
[[Category:Filmways films]]
[[Category:1960s American films]]