Sergeant York

"Them guns was killin' hundreds, maybe thousands, and there weren't nothin' anybody could do, but to stop them guns."

Of all Hollywood's pre-WWII propaganda films, Sergeant York (1941) was the most influential. Howard Hawks' biopic of Alvin York, Tennessee farmer-turned-hero, targeted Americans skeptical that Europe's problems were their own. Hoary but effective, it couches military service as a moral imperative.
Alvin York (Gary Cooper) terrorizes Tennessee as a drunken, sharpshooting troublemaker. York comes under the wing of Pastor Pile (Walter Brennan), finding religion and wooing farmer's daughter Gracie (Joan Leslie). When World War I breaks out, York finds his principles conflicting with the need for military service. Nonetheless, when York lands on the frontlines, he becomes an unlikely hero.
Based on York's memoirs, Sergeant York focuses on its hero's background. Hawks and a quintet of screenwriters (including John Huston) craft a backwoods melodrama, emphasizing York's rough-hewn family life and conversion to Christianity (inspired by a lightning strike). These sequences are hokey but sincere. Later flag-wavers like The Fighting Sullivans (1944) repeated this device, emphasizing the ordinariness of American servicemen.
York's second half shows Alvin preparing for war while wrestling with his conscience. A benign Major (Stanley Ridges) convinces York that religion and military service needn't conflict, helped by York finding an appropriate Bible passage. To its credit, York treats its hero's struggles with respect: York's objections are naïve but sincere. Ultimately, he squares any reservations with the observation that helping end the war saves lives.
Hawks finally transitions to war movie with impressive battle scenes, with York's unit fighting a pitched battle against well-entrenched Germans. York's Medal of Honor heroics are too absurd to invent: he kills an entire German platoon with guile, marksmanship and turkey calls. York becomes a celebrity but declines to exploit his fame. Like all American heroes he embraces duty, shuns wealth and returns home, placing family before fame.
If Sergeant York's patriotism seems hackneyed today, it was controversial in July 1941. Charles Lindbergh and America First isolationists battled Franklin Roosevelt's military preparations; Congress's Dies Committee investigated Hollywood's "premature antifascists" for advocating intervention. Nonetheless, it inspired thousands to enlist even before Pearl Harbor. Where Foreign Correspondent and Man Hunt were fantasies, York's appeal to moral duty struck a chord.
Gary Cooper won an Oscar playing York. Cooper makes York an archetypical American, evolving from hard-drinking hillbilly to hard-working farmer and reluctant hero. Joan Leslie makes an appealing love interest while Walter Brennan is a wizened pastor. Ward Bond is York's drinking buddy, George Tobias his New York squad mate, Stanley Ridges a friendly Major.
Modern critics slam Sergeant York for its homespun, uncritical patriotism. Certainly its message becomes questionable if applied to later conflicts. Nonetheless, Sergeant York works a document of its time, and a tribute to America's fighting men.