Sergeant York (1941)

Sergeant York is a biography on one of the most famous American heros of World War I, Sergeant Alvin York. The film was the highest grossing film of 1941 and won actor Gary Cooper the Academy Award for Best Actor. York was also nominated for ten other Awards and won for Best Editing. Part of the reason for York's incredible commercial success was that it was playing in theatres during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and so Americans flocked to this patriotic picture.

I liked Sergeant York. It's a quaint, sentimental picture that aims to celebrate an American war hero and makes no compromises in doing so. The film makes a very large emphasis on the man, Alvin, rather than on his legacy as a war hero; Alvin only joins the army after the halfway point. Director Howard Hawkes does this to have audiences relate and empathize with Alvin rather than simply cheer him on for his killing. I thought this was a smart move because it allows Cooper's performance and classic charisma to shine making you root for him the whole way. This is why the film can get away with only a single action segment, Cooper is so enjoyable to watch you hardly need anything else to be entertained.

The story is sentimentality pumped to the max, sometimes making me believe I was sitting through a Frank Capra picture. It is a fun, enjoyable film that is extremely accessible to audiences (so long as you're American), but there's just not much more to it than that. If I were to ever watch it again I could very well see myself falling asleep because it's just very one dimensional with nothing much more to offer. I imagine I would think differently if I had lived through a war myself, however. Still, it doesn't change the fact if you took Gary Cooper's natural charisma out of this film it wouldn't be even half as good. I enjoyed Sergeant York for what it was, but it really wasn't a hell of a lot.