You Americans are really enjoying this war, aren't you?
After going like gangbusters throughout the '50s, Paddy Chayefsky slowed his output way down in the following decade. In fact, he has just two screenwriting credits -- one for adapting Paint Your Wagon in 1969 and the other for writing the screenplay for 1964's The Americanization of Emily. I've never seen the former, but this is my second time through the latter, which seems about right to me. Based on the novel by William Bradford Huie and set during the lead-up to D-Day, the film stars James Garner as the silver-tongued procurer of hard-to-procure goods and services for a high-ranking admiral and Julie Andrews as the priggish motor-pool volunteer who falls for him in spite of his less than admirable qualities. Naturally, he falls for her right back, but the war sees fit to make sure their road to happiness is filled with a sufficient number of speed bumps.
One of these speed bumps is provided by admiral Melvyn Douglas, who's concerned about the future of the Navy and puts Garner in charge of making a film about the Naval demolition engineers that are making the invasion possible. And Garner's fellow staffer James Coburn surprises him by being unexpectedly enthusiastic about the project once the wheels are set in motion. As is frequently the case with Chayefsky's scripts, the action periodically stops dead for a long-winded speech or two, but director Arthur Hiller doesn't oversell the drama at the expense of the comedy -- or vice versa. (That said, the bit with Keenan Wynn as a drunken sailor is a little broad, but at least it's over with quickly enough.) The most heartbreaking performance, though, is delivered by Joyce Grenfell as Andrews's mother, who hasn't been coping too well with the loss of her son and husband. Coming to terms with that sort of thing may not be the easiest thing in the world, but it's preferable to living in denial.