Dance of the Puppet Characters

It’s never good when the audience senses the hand of the talesman at work

Last night I saw The Americanization of Emily an early 1960s movie directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Paddy Chayefsky, and starring James Garner and Julie Andrews. Set in London in late spring 1944, the movie is a satire on military establishments and an antiwar polemic.

I’d seen the movie on television 30 years ago, and remembered liking it, being impressed by its audacity and its way of thumbing its nose at the brass. This time, though, I liked it a little less.

In particular, the characters seemed to me to move through a dance the author had choreographed. They did things that didn’t seem justified, just so (it seemed to me) they could get into the situations the author wanted them in.

I found it hard to accept that the two lovers even got together in the first place; that their passion was unusual for both of them was somewhat easier for me to swallow. The worst was the ending, in which the hero, a smooth-talking con man of the sort that former ‘Maverick’ star Garner played so well, gets totally bamboozled by sweetheart Andrews. The logic of the speeches in that last scene are enough to turn the heads of even the most inveterate screwball-comedy watcher. And it’s all for the sake of the final shot under the end credits, and the rich irony dripping therefrom.

It is always a grave danger to leave your audience thinking, ‘Why are they doing this? It’s just because the writer wants them to do it.’

For an audience, this sort of feeling breaks the essential trust we have in the world, and it only can work when the talesman or the actors break the fourth wall in some sort of self-referential parody of the forms. In Emily no such parody is apparent, and the fourth wall is never broken.

Crisp photography, sheer star power of the leads and supporting cast, the delight of seeing Judy Carne in a small role early in her career, brilliant, if somewhat theatrical dialogue, and a breezy pace overcome many flaws, and on the whole I still like Emily. But the flaws were troubling.

(Composed Tuesday, July 15, 2008)