# The Americanization of Emily
**The Americanization of Emily** is a 1964 American black-and-white satirical anti-war romantic comedy directed by [Arthur Hiller](https://www.edgepedia.org/arthur-hiller), written by [Paddy Chayefsky](https://www.edgepedia.org/paddy-chayefsky), and starring [James Garner](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-garner), Julie Andrews, and Melvyn Douglas. Set in London in the weeks before D-Day, it follows Lieutenant Commander Charles Madison, a self-described coward who procures luxuries for Navy brass, and his romance with Emily Barham, a British war widow, until Madison is ordered to land on Omaha Beach as part of a Navy public-relations scheme.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | New York premiere 27 Oct 1964 at Loew's State Theatre; general opening 28 Oct 1964; Los Angeles opening 25 Dec 1964[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) |
| Source | Adapted by Paddy Chayefsky from William Bradford Huie's 1959 novel, published by E. P. Dutton & Company on 12 Aug 1959[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) |
| Format | 115 minutes, black and white, Westrex sound; produced by Martin Ransohoff for Filmways, Inc., distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) |
| Principal cast | James Garner (Lt. Cmdr. Charles E. Madison), Julie Andrews (Emily Barham), Melvyn Douglas (Adm. William Jessup), James Coburn (Lt. Cmdr. "Bus" Cummings)[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily) |
| Recognition | Academy Award nominations for Art Direction (Black-and-White) and Cinematography (Black-and-White)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) |
| Critical standing | 93% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (14 reviews); 82% audience score from more than 2,500 ratings[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/americanization_of_emily) |
| Later release | Re-released under the title *Emily* on 6 Sep 1967[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
In wartime London just before D-Day, Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison serves as an aide to the eccentric Rear Admiral Jessup, supplying top Navy officers with luxuries such as party girls, steaks, and liquor. Madison is an exponent of cowardice as a virtue, because he believes that reverence for heroism promotes war. A romance develops between him and Emily Barham, the young British woman who drives his motorpool vehicle and who has already been widowed and bereft of a brother by the war.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
Admiral Jessup, obsessed with the idea that the Army has a better public image than the Navy, is determined that the first dead man on [Omaha Beach](https://www.edgepedia.org/omaha-beach) on D-Day be a sailor. He orders Madison to photograph the landing, and Madison, despite protests that alienate Emily, is forced at gunpoint to be the first man to land on the beach. Running from bombs, he trips a land mine and is reported as the first man killed in the invasion.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) Jessup then organizes a hero's welcome for Madison, who threatens to confess the true story of his cowardice to the press.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATIONOFEMILY?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00aefbd1-4c00-4765-910b-f872416053ee&sr=0.22554734)
## From novel to screenplay
William Bradford Huie's novel was published on 12 August 1959 as a continuation of the story of Lieutenant Commander Charles E. Madison, who had served as the narrator in Huie's *The Revolt of Mamie Stover* (1941). The property failed to attract financiers until Huie prepared it as a completed screenplay, at which point Martin Ransohoff picked it up at Filmways, Inc. Norman Rosten completed a rewrite of the first half, and Huie remained involved in scripting into early 1963. On 10 April 1963, Paddy Chayefsky was assigned to complete the script, for which he received sole writing credit.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
## Production
[William Holden](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-holden) originally agreed to play the male lead, and the project drew the attention of directors Michael Gordon, George Roy Hill, and [William Wyler](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-wyler). Wyler left the picture on 11 September 1963 over disagreements about the script, and Arthur Hiller was named director; James Garner stepped in for Holden at the same time.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
[Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began outside the Houses of Parliament in London on 13 October 1963. After the London exteriors, the unit returned to Los Angeles, working at the MGM backlot in Culver City and at Desilu Productions' Gower Street facility in Hollywood. The D-Day beach sequence used two LCVP landing craft obtained from civilian sources, because the U.S. Navy refused to provide the vessels owing to the script's cynical attitude toward war. Beach footage was shot in [Oxnard, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/oxnard-california), where high tides and strong coastal winds damaged the set in January 1964. A scene featuring [Judy Carne](https://www.edgepedia.org/judy-carne) in the nude was reshot with James Coburn and Garner in late January 1964, but that version was never used.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
Ransohoff agreed to delay the opening until after Disney released *Mary Poppins*, which became a box-office hit. The film premiered on 27 October 1964 at the Loew's State Theatre in New York City, opened there the next day, and reached Los Angeles on 25 December 1964.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
## Reception and controversy
The film's depiction of wartime heroism drew a mixed response from critics and audiences. Many charged it with being anti-military and anti-American, accusing it of ridiculing World War II and mocking the deaths of the men who died on D-Day; complaints also targeted monologues about war widows and the film's portrayal of combat fatigue. The Navy took notice and actively deterred the distribution of film prints to its bases.[5](https://thenewbev.com/blog/2017/11/the-americanization-of-emily/)
After attending a public screening at which viewers expressed dismay, Arthur Hiller published a defense in the *Los Angeles Times* on 3 January 1965, arguing that many viewers misread the film as disapproval of soldiers rather than as a comment on the lunacy of the attributes attached to war. "Goodness, virtue and nobility are so out of place in the context of war that satiric laughter is the only logical response," he wrote, adding that the film urges people to "be grieved by death, but not proud of it" and to stop celebrating war, because glorifying war creates a climate for more wars.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) • [5](https://thenewbev.com/blog/2017/11/the-americanization-of-emily/)
The film was nonetheless a commercial success. [Turner Classic Movies](https://www.edgepedia.org/turner-classic-movies) describes it as a vanguard anti-war film that mocked mindless patriotism years before such attitudes became fashionable in war films, and notes that its cynical soldier anticipated the irreverent protagonists of *MASH* (1970), *Catch-22* (1970), and *Apocalypse Now* (1979).[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 93% Tomatometer from 14 reviews and an 82% audience score from more than 2,500 ratings.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/americanization_of_emily)
## Awards and music
The American Film Institute Catalog records Academy Award nominations for Art Direction (Black-and-White) and [Cinematography](https://www.edgepedia.org/cinematography) (Black-and-White).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY) Turner Classic Movies additionally lists a nomination for Best Musical Score.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily) Johnny Mandel composed the score, and the song "Emily," written with lyricist [Johnny Mercer](https://www.edgepedia.org/johnny-mercer), became a hit recorded by [Frank Sinatra](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-sinatra), Andy Williams, Jack Jones, David Rose, and others.[6](https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/americanization_of_emily.html)
## Julie Andrews between musicals
Released between *Mary Poppins* (1964) and *The Sound of Music* (1965), the film showed that Andrews's appeal extended beyond her singing voice, and it marked an unexpected choice of role for an actress fresh off her Oscar-winning debut.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily) • [7](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100003545/) She played a proper, repressed war widow who falls for the cavalier Madison, telling him, "It is your most important asset, being a coward. Every man I ever loved was a hero and all he got was death."[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily)
On 6 September 1967, the film was re-released as *Emily* to capitalize on the popularity of [James Coburn](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-coburn) and Andrews, who had since won an Academy Award for *Mary Poppins* and starred in *The Sound of Music*, *Hawaii* (1966), and *Thoroughly Modern Millie* (1967). A planned musical stage adaptation, reported in July 1968, did not move ahead.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
## Legacy
The film has been selected by the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute) as one of the 400 best American films.[8](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-americanization-of-emily/umc.cmc.1x2imaf4ytam547ai8x8mpjp) Critics have continued to read it as a scathing critique of the military establishment and the glorification of war, while noting that its satire sits uneasily against the setting of a just war against fascism, a tension some reviewers argue the film never fully resolves.[9](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-americanization-of-emily/) A 2013 study in *Film International* examined it as an anti-war classic centered on pacifism and propaganda.[10](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/fiin.11.2.32_1)
## References
1. [The Americanization of Emily (1964), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATION-OF-EMILY)
2. [Felicia Feaster, "The Americanization of Emily," Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1184/the-americanization-of-emily)
3. [The Americanization of Emily, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/americanization_of_emily)
4. [The Americanization of Emily, AFI Catalog (synopsis page)](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/22969-THE-AMERICANIZATIONOFEMILY?cp=1&pos=0&sid=00aefbd1-4c00-4765-910b-f872416053ee&sr=0.22554734)
5. ["The Americanization of Emily," New Beverly Cinema](https://thenewbev.com/blog/2017/11/the-americanization-of-emily/)
6. [The Americanization of Emily (Johnny Mandel), Film Score Monthly](https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/americanization_of_emily.html)
7. [Americanization of Emily, The, AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100003545/)
8. [The Americanization of Emily, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-americanization-of-emily/umc.cmc.1x2imaf4ytam547ai8x8mpjp)
9. [Nick Schager, "Review: The Americanization of Emily," Slant Magazine](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-americanization-of-emily/)
10. [Richard A. Voeltz, "A Pacifist and/or Cowardly Yank In Britain: The Americanization of Emily (1964) as anti-war classic," Film International 11.2 (2013)](https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/fiin.11.2.32_1)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › War and historical films (individual works) › War action and adventure › War action films released through 1999 › Released 1963 to 1998*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license