Review of Sergeant York (1941) by Tim H — 23 Oct 2008

I'm a little torn on this movie.

When I first started watching it, I was bored silly and a little upset that this movie was considered a classic. The big problem I have with this film is the first half of the movie. The first half of the movie without the context of the second half of the film is absolutely mindnumber. It really is You're a Good Man, Abner Yokum. Really, this was just a stereotype of down home Applalachia with some good ol' drinking and marryin' and ignorance and the whole lot that came with the movie. Considering that I was getting settled in for an older war movie, I thought I'd have that treat. I didn't get any of that from the first half of the film.

But then I finished the film (a considerable amount of time later due to an irreparable scratch on the rental copy) and I kind of liked it. If you haven't noticed (and it's not that I'm particularly waving the flag every two seconds) I love patriotic films. This one is crazy patriotic. (I am patriotic, but I don't own tee-shirts.) This movie has got that same Mr. Smith Goes to Washington vibe by the time you get to the end, but Mr. Smith does it so much better. What this movie offers, I suppose, is one man's story completely propagandized to help with enlisting for World War II. Heck, I don't blame them. Some absolutely fantastic stuff came out of this movement so I'm not saying it is a bad thing.

I just wish they didn't make York so dumb.

The movie really sold it to me (which is a first) on the special features. I knew that it was based on a real guy, but I just couldn't believe that this cartoon character of a man was a real person. I'm not saying that it was only Gary Cooper who came off a little silly, but the entire vibe of the movie was absolutely ridiculous and silly. Then I watched the special feature on the real Sergeant York. Yeah, I think the movie went a little far with their portrayal of him, but he honestly was that crazy religious and sheltered from the world. It's hard to believe that this kind of guy would be this absolutely famous war hero. I mean, he had spinning newspapers and everything. I guess he kind of deserved it, although I don't know why the Germans gave up so darned easily because they could have and should have easily overwhelmed the rest of the American and British troops.

Another thing that really rubbed me the wrong way, and I suppose I can write this off to the fact that it is a propaganda film, is the fact that we don't really get a lot of the natural emotions that come from war out of Sergeant York. He's just a character that is meant to be so confident in everything he does because he's almost too dumb to fear anything that we don't have that moment when he is terrified that the Germans might escape. C'mon...with those few soldiers and not even enough bullets for half of the German army, you don't think that U.S. officers would have been terrified to walk them that far. What's funny on top of that is the ease of surrender. The second group they captured didn't even question surrendering. They had a military advantage over York and company! Why surrender? I'm sure that the film Hollywoodized how easy the German defeat would have been, but there's encouraging ideals versus complete believablilty. *sigh*.

I can't say that this movie is really great. It's worth watching the whole thing, but the movie is terribly flawed and just not interesting for a good long time. We get such a background on York's life, which I suppose is necessary for the payoff to be so grand, but it almost costs too much for the amount of greatness you get.