Sergeant York (1941), which premiered 85 years ago today at New York City’s Astor Theatre on the eve of July 4 festivities, reflected a resilient America.
The film — produced by pioneering filmmaker Jesse L. Lasky, Hal B. Wallis and Howard Hawks, scored by legendary composer Max Steiner, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures — profiled an expert marksman and conscientious objector from the backwoods of Tennessee named Alvin C. York who would become a hero of World War I.
One of 11 children, York helped support his family as schooling took a back seat to hunting, fishing, and laboring. After his blacksmith father died, York became a blacksmith himself to help care for his younger siblings. But he was a hard-drinking brawler who frequented illegal saloons, binging on locally produced moonshine and whiskey.
York’s only choice to play himself was Gary Cooper, who gave an Oscar-winning performance portraying York’s homespun authenticity and his demons. At the start of the film, based on York’s diary, he disrupts the local service being held in the Wolf River Methodist Church with a gunbattle outside.
“A little religion wouldn’t do him no hurt,” his mother (Margaret Wycherly) tells Pastor Rosier Pile (Walter Brennan) after this particularly bad incident.
Pastor Pile finally comes calling — not unexpectedly.
“Did you ever think when you start plowing your furrows crooked, it’s mighty hard to get ‘em straight again,” Pile says. “It’s thata way I reckon with other things besides plowing… Satan’s got you by the shirttail, Alvin.”
“Sure has.”
“He’s gonna yank you straight down to hell.”
“You are plum right, pastor.”
“You gotta make him let loose of you before it’s too late.”
“I sure wish I know’d how.”
“Rassle him, Alvin, rassle him like you would a bar.”
“But old Satan he hangs on tight… I sure wish the Lord would throw in…”
“He will if you ask him… It’s not only praying, it’s believing… A fellow got to have his roots in something outside his own self.”
So, the scene is set for this battle of good versus evil.
Soon he’s meeting and falling in love with lovely Gracie Williams (Joan Leslie), the prettiest girl in town — only yesterday an awkward school girl.
Of his conversion, York says, “A fellow can’t go looking for it; it’s just got to come to a fellow.”
So it did — but not until the film’s tentpole scene, midway, when he is literally knocked off his horse, St. Paul-like.
It happens after he works to earn enough money to buy some bottomland — to prove to Gracie he’s not just a "fighter and hellraiser," but has the resources to raise a family with her. Soon he’s selling his mule, two dozen pullets, prime winter pelts, two sacks of rabbit skins, a clock, and a sack of goose feathers, for “50 United States dollars.” He has 60 days to come up with the other $70 to exercise his option on Nate Tompkins’ land. If he fails, he will lose it all. He’s clearing rocks from a field, splitting rails, selling a pelt, removing a stump, plowing land, among other hard manual labor. But he’s not making it and yells out to God, “How am I going to do it?”
He asks for a four-day extension, which Tompkins grants, giving York time to compete and win in a beef and turkey shoot. York wins the whole shoot, including “Lem’s beef critter” but Mr. Tompkins, believing such a feat nigh impossible, has double-crossed him and sold the land to Zeb Andrews, also sweet on Gracie, who urges Alvin to calm down. But he hits the saloons, getting spun up enough to grab his gun, intent on killing Tompkins.
Intent, that is until when enroute, miraculously, he is knocked off his horse, whereupon he shows up at the church service rocking to the strains of “Old Time Religion,” and joins in.
No boozing, swearing, or brawling, the Church of Christ in Christian Unity prescribes, and before long, York is apologizing to Tompkins, and reaching out to Andrews to farm the land he lost to him. It’s a stunning turnaround, all the while his relationship with Gracie solidifies.
Then, on April 6, 1917, America enters World War I.
York, believing his religion forbids him to fight, registers for the draft but seeks an exemption based on “conscientious objection.”
It’s unsuccessful. So he joins the 82nd Army Division heading to France where, in training, he distinguishes himself with a perfect shooting score. His commanding officer impresses upon him his patriotic duty to fight, underscoring our government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” while agreeing to let him ponder his decision, and if he still has moral objections, he will approve his exemption.
As York carefully considers the matter in that famous scene, sitting on a ledge atop a mountain, his dog by his side, he comes to the conclusion, in the words of Jesus, that he must “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
He is soon leading an attack on a German machine gun nest during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in France that the United States led. Poised to breach the Hindenburg line to force the Germans into surrendering, he seizes 35 machine guns; kills some 25 enemy soldiers; and captures 132 prisoners, for which he wins the Medal of Honor along with military honors conferred by France, Italy and Montenegro.
Once home, he is accorded a hero’s welcome, including a big surprise waiting for him and Gracie.
Cooper, who would, in time, convert to Catholicism, was moved by York’s own conversion story, helping him warm up to the idea.
A truly inspiring story, showing how special and blessed America is as it celebrates its 250th Independence Day this Fourth of July.
