Dramatist and novelist Paddy Chayefsky (who died in 1981) wrote some terrific plays and novels. He wrote the screenplay for the (underrated) movie "The Americanization of Emily," from the novel by William Bradford Huie. It's here that Chayefsky's brilliance as a writer shines brightly - in his defense of America.
America needs defending, now more than ever, during this, the Europeanization of our president, Barack Obama.
There's no need to unravel the entire plot of "The Americanization of Emily" except to note that it takes place in London at the onset of D-Day. James Garner plays Lt. Cmdr. Charles Edward Madison. He falls in love with British war widow Emily Barham, played by Julie Andrews. This is what he says:
"You America haters bore me to tears, Miss Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles...Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world.
"We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are - and perhaps so.
"But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet.
"I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Miss Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war to your little Island.
"This war, Miss, Barham, to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity.
"Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was going brothel long before we came to town."
Someone may want to deliver that message to the White House - from a movie released in 1964.
Novelist Jack Engelhard is the author of "Indecent Proposal" and "The Bathsheba Deadline." His latest novel "The Girls of Cincinnati" is available in paperback on Amazon. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 8
"The Americanization of Emily" was a very good movie, but what's the relevance of dragging up Hitler and Mussolini? We can't rest forever on our good-guy image from 60 years ago. We have to reassert the principles that made us good guys. That's what Obama is doing and he's doing it very well. I'm proud of him and proud to be an American - right here and now in the 21st Century.
It is not a good day to be an Obama Hater.
these "soveriegn nations with their points of view" once held 400 Americans hostage in unholy terror for over a year, regularly behead any "infidel" they catch [that's YOU guys...wake UP!], dropped rockets on Israel, REFUSED TO ALLOW INSPECTION OF CERTAIN "PRESIDENTIAL SITES" , while his sons picked high school girls to send to torture chambers from which they never returned.
SWELL POINTS OF VIEW...GREAT PEOPLE.
Those points of view are Hitler and Mussolini reincarnate....and better be eradicated once and for all. This nation has gone blind...inviting yet more Palestineans...those mf's who danced with joy as thousands of American died agonizing deaths..into our country and sending them money (1) that will never be used for anythying other than HATE projects...like more missles to drop on Israeli settlements.... and {2} would be better spent on our homeless people....the brilliant outcome of clinton turning ghouls like Bank of America loose on an unsuspecting public.
We're ignoring the real victim in all this...Israel...and we've deserted Poland...an ally helping in Iraq...whose soldiers saved my daughter's life one night....
for the sake of Russia...whose bloody bullets and expended shells are all over the place in f'ing Iraq.... and will NEVER support any freedom of action in Eastern Europe because from the Tsarist days to the present they think they own the joint.
we're stabbing our friends in the back for the sake of our enemies. what hillary clinton and barack obama know about American interests wouldn't fill an f'ing thimble.
I guess when you're an American you have to serve in a war [or in a North African prison] to even begin to understand the savagery and determination of certain "points ofview" to kill and keep on killing that today run rampant in this doomed world.
If anybody sees progress toward PEACE [not bloody appeasement..dammit will we ever learn the difference? not with these amateurs whose only claim to fame have been their lifelong determination to advance themselves....have we ever had a president that did so little to serve anyone but himself before clinton and obama?] please give me the name of your occulist...or however the hell you spell it.
I agree with Rude D....it's not a good day to be an obama hater...because it's 1933 all over again and no one [YET AGAIN] sees it coming.....
Second, John, you say in your post something like politicians like Obama don't learn from history. While I agree that that's the problem with the majority of liberals, I suspect that it's something different for most of the politicians.
I think most of them are smart enough to know history and to know that it repeats, but their politics overrides their knowledge. In other words, it's more important to them to say what they think people want to hear than to say what they know is better for the country. It's more important that they be elected so they can be in power positions.
I guess you could call that egotistical? And I also think, by the way, that no one political party has all the egotistical politicians, but in this case, I think, our President is one of them.