Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Think of Network or The Hospital, Paddy Chayefsky was seeing into the future and what he saw was ugly. Here we have an insane admiral and how his men, who know he's crazy, stand in line to follow his wishes/commands. An anti war film without sentimentality. Julie Andrews is a total delight as the tough cookie with a razor sharp mind. James Garner has the best lines of his career. His tea with Joyce Grenfell is a superb written scene. Joyce Grenfell as Julie's mother is divine, yes, divine! Melvyn Douglas as the crazy man in charge is the Howard Beale of the situation and what he does with it is pure genius. Highly recommend it.

NOTES: William Holden, originally scheduled to play the lead, was replaced at the last minute. The director, William Wyler, was fired by producer Ransohoff after ten days of shooting.COMMENT: If the role played by Julie Andrews were drastically curtailed - most of it is totally irrelevant to the main plot which we were dying to get back to - and if the leading man were replaced by someone more convincing than glum-faced, furrow-browed, glassy eyed James Garner (the role seems tailor-made for Gregory Peck) and a director with more verve and imaginative flair than Arthur Hiller was engaged (how about John H. Auer?), this would have had the makings of an entertaining film. Even now, some judicious cutting of the Garner-Andrews scenes would considerably improve it. (The U.K. version is certainly a step in the right direction, but at least another ten minutes could come out.) As it is, the fascinating behind-the-scenes story is all but suffocated by the surrounding romantic tedium. Melvyn Douglas and James Coburn make the most of their opportunities in support roles, but the rest of the large cast hardly gets a look-in, thanks to the relentless concentration on the Garner-Andrews story. One exception is Joyce Grenfell, who uses her comedy mannerisms to ill advantage in what seems to have been intended as a dramatic role. Production values are pretty ordinary, with stock footage helping out for the D-Day scenes. Incidentally, the plot gambit of the day's delay is too well-known to stand up to the extended footage with which director Hiller tries to milk these scenes. The black-and-white photography is mediocre, the sets have obviously made little strain on the producer's pocket and the music score is as often as not atmospherically inappropriate.

As a Chayefsky fan, I sorta held off on this movie because it was presented to me as a mere anti-war film. I'm a little bit tired of anti-war films. I think we all are... But here I am, finishing my second viewing of this movie on back-to-back nights, and with great pleasure I can say that The Americanization of Emily is not a simple anti-war film. True to the Chayefsky name, this is one of the most original, well-crafted movies you will ever see. This is screen writing at its best: where conventional romances and gags are turned into a statement on the human condition, and you can laugh and, at the same time, hear your own thoughts put more eloquently than you could ever manage. The Americanization of Emily is not content to stop at anti-war. It moves on and on, sometimes so quick it may be a little jarring at first or seem a little preachy, and maybe it is, but, for all it's flaws (the love song is eerily similar to Spartacus's love theme), this film could easily enter a top ten list. I don't want to hype it up too much, though. I may only like it because I agree. I also don't want to neglect director Arthur Hiller's great contribution (keep an eye out for the 3 minute take in the hotel room.) If you're a Chayefsky fan (which should be just about everyone), however, or if you enjoy the absolute mastery of craft exhibited by Hollywod during its Golden Age, you'll love this film. I highly suggest it. I really do.

Julie Andrews means Mary Poppins, right? And James Garner was the admirable star of The Rockford Files. And Arthur Hiller hasn't been much of a director, overall. So this film was a major surprise to me, an amazingly interesting examination of the American character, a trenchant satire, not on war itself, but on the glorification of war, a bitter screed about those in power who choose all kinds of reasons to send young men to death except the right ones--and it's a funny film, too, although when James Garner delivers a reasonable tirade about wartime death to a war widow in denial, I must admit to chagrin and then agreement: it's Paddy Chayevsky's brilliant script that makes this satire work--the direction is lackluster, the film a little too long, but it's probably more vital today than it was some forty years ago. Bad title, brilliantly acted, recommended!