YANKS: Blu-ray (CIP/Universal, 1979) Twilight Time

A passion project for its director, Brit-born/Hollywood titan, John Schlesinger, Yanks (1979) remains something of an anomaly in his career; at times, a heartfelt valentine to the imperfect and tenuous relationship the UK had with its American invasion during WWII. Intermittently, ‘the Yanks’ were received with a burgeoning fascination from the ‘of age’ English lasses (who thought them handsome and suitable for…well), and, young lads – who idolized their brashness (as templates for how to be a man), but also, a modicum of apprehension, and, more than an ounce of disdain from the more established folk, who thought them a bold, gutsy and galling intrusion.  Clearly, Schlesinger’s mindset is of the former opinion; America – his adopted country – while applying a loving brush to his canvas to explain away the critical unease of the natives in his native land.  Schlesinger, born in London in 1926, but who died in Palm Springs in 2003, began his career as an actor in the 1950’s on the BBC. By 1956, the bloom had worn off, and Schlesinger switched to directing instead. In the early sixties, he established a certain cinematic style; edgy, sad-eyed and introspective, with such memorable hits as A Kind of Loving (1962 – and winner of Berlin’s Golden Bear), Billy Liar (1963) and Darling (1965 – the first movie to uncompromisingly explore the ‘swingin’ mod scene in London). Darling also won its star, Julie Christie a Best Actress Oscar besides.

Christie and Schlesinger would team again for his superb evocation of Thomas Hardy’s novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). Then, in 1969, Schlesinger effectively broke the mold with Midnight Cowboy (1969), the only X-rated movie to ever win Best Picture.  From here on in, Schlesinger’s movies concentrated on the disenfranchised in contemporary society; Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971), The Day of the Locust (1975), and, Marathon Man (1976). The mega success of Marathon Man afforded Schlesinger the opportunity to write his own ticket in Hollywood. And hence, Yanks – which could hardly be considered ‘commercial’, even in the experimental seventies – was green-lit by Universal, perhaps on nothing more than a promise that with Schlesinger’s name attached to it, it would somehow come off a winner. On a $6-million-dollar budget, Schlesinger made the most of a story by Colin Welland and Walter Bernstein, hiring production designer, Brian Morris, cinematographer, Dick Bush, and composer, Richard Rodney Bennett to infuse the picture with heart and all the vintage flavor of a movie shot at the height of the European conflict. That Yanks proved a colossal flop (it barely made back half its initial outlay) was hugely disappointing, particularly to Schlesinger, who had toiled with near religious fever to will his bittersweet portrait to life.

In hindsight, it is easier to see the vices in Yanks in lieu of its virtues; Schlesinger, perhaps, too close to the project, and oddly sentimental (not his forte) in charting two burgeoning love affairs; the first, between strapping American Technical Sergeant, Matt Dyson (Richard Gere, top-billed) and the winsome English rose of a local shop keeper, Jean Moreton (Lisa Eichhorn); the other, more maturely felt between a U.S. Captain John (William Devaine) and an aristocrat, doing her part on the home front - Helen (Vanessa Redgrave). A third coupling, Matt’s best friend and fellow soldier, Danny Ruffelo (Chick Vennera) and double-decker bus driver, Mollie (Wendy Morgan) also gets touched upon and, of the three couples, best seems to fall into the popularized cliché about Americans in Britain during the war – “Over-paid, oversexed, and over here!” We can easily write off the Danny/Mollie coupling, as it remains mere background as we toggle between Matt/Jean, and, John/Helen – catching glimpses of the ironies and tragedy that shapes their grand amour. Perhaps, Schlesinger has bitten off more than he can chew, as he appears to have some difficulty breaking into either story line; his set-up for each, not terribly prepossessing.

Matt meets Jean by happenstance and falls madly for her in an instant. Her parents, Clarrie (played with exquisite restraint by Rachel Roberts) and Jim (Tony Melody) are not at all convinced their daughter should be entertaining ‘a Yank’. After all, Jean is on the cusp of an engagement to Ken (Derek Thompson) – an amiable bloke from their village, presently fighting the good fight overseas.  Yanks picks up the tale as U.S. Forces stationed in Britain are preparing for the Normandy invasion; the modest town adjacent its makeshift military base, inundated daily with new recruits, including Matt and Danny. Schlesinger introduces us to his six principles, throwing two of them almost immediately under the proverbial bus (bye-bye, Danny and Mollie), but then, takes his sweet time setting up the respective ‘cute meets’ of the other two couples. Indeed, Schlesinger finds it easier, simply, to suggest John and Helen have already known each other, mutually invested in doing their part for the war effort. Matt meets Jean while out at the local cinema with Danny. However, Matt’s directness does not win him any points with Jean. Indeed, she finds him slightly intolerable at best. Matt quickly changes his tune and apologizes for his manner. True to every movie-land cliché, he’s not really a bad egg after all, but a good guy hiding his shyness under a thin veneer of cockiness. There is something quite engaging about these early moments in the film, as Gere and Eichhorn find their characters’ common ground. These scenes work because they are genuine and tender in a way that the rest of the movie, decidedly, is not. With his matinee idol good looks and gutsy resolve, it is easy to accept Jean’s attraction to Matt.

By contrast, Helen is a more accomplished gal, able to critically assess her interests in Captain John. Both are married – Helen’s hubby, away at sea, and John’s presumably dutiful Mrs. holding the fort back in America. After their brief ‘cute meet’ at the movies, and an even more short-lived ‘walk’, Matt finds out where Jean’s father’s shop is located. He arrives unannounced the next day and, under Clarrie’s watchful eye, makes several superficial purchases, merely to engage Jean in more fruitful conversation. She is put-off, yet strangely attracted by his chutzpah. After all, how dare he? However, Clarrie is more reluctant to warm up to Matt. Nevertheless, this is a guy who does not give up. So, Matt - the big-hearted sort - steadily plies the Moreton clan with hard-to-get food stuffs and other presents. As Clarrie still believes her daughter will do the right thing and remain loyal to Ken, she too, if with caution and gradually, comes to accept Matt on more friendly terms. Alas, unforeseen circumstances will impede upon their happiness.  Clarrie, falls ill. Jean blames herself, for worrying mum. Next, a telegram arrives from the war office, informing Jean that Ken has been killed in action. As Jean and Matt have already pledged their love to each other, Clarrie – heart-sore over Ken’s loss – blames her daughter’s affair as a kind of betrayal.

In truth, Jean is not all that broken up about Ken’s death. In fact, it has saved her from a loveless marriage without any painful break-ups or ugly goodbyes.  She is now free to pursue Matt as her lover.  And Matt is also grateful for the chance to be with Jean without feeling guilty about it. So, he decides to take Jean on a weekend getaway to a Welsh seaside resort. And although Matt desperately wants Jean, he interrupts their love-making, whispering “not like this.” Presumably, Matt wants to make an honest woman of Jean before he ravages her sexually. However, misreading his intent, Jean is spurned (indeed, Matt sees her as something finer than a weekend tryst). Meanwhile, Helen finally takes John to bed – theirs, a far more maturely felt bond with no strings attached. At this point, Schlesinger interjects a needless vignette into the narrative; Jean, Matt, Mollie and Danny at a dance hall to wait out the New Year. As the night draws to a close, a black American soldier (Al Matthews) is assaulted by several racist G.I.’s for engaging in a spirited Lindy Hop on the dance floor with a white girl. As Matt and Danny do nothing to stop the brawl, Jean takes her stance against racial prejudice by engaging another black soldier to dance after the initial confrontation has been diffused. While Matt does nothing to prevent this situation, he is clearly not pleased by it either. Word arrives that all Americans are to ship out by troop train first thing in the morning in preparation for D-Day. While Jean and Matt’s relationship has been sincerely strained, his last-minute gift and message to her, prompts Jean to race to the railway station to bid him goodbye. As the train pulls out of station, Matt sees Jean and vows to come home to her after the war. Ah…but will he?

Despite Schlesinger’s verve for the material, Yanks is an uneven entertainment at best. The picture’s one unforgivable sin is the casting of Richard Gere.  While undeniably fun to look at, Gere has never been able to assimilate into period parts. Instead, he is very much an ‘of the now’ type of guy and actor; even, in his vintage duds, operating with the slickest of intentions decades’ advanced and removed from the actual narrative timeline. William Devaine is another misfire. Devaine’s persona is not big enough for the movies. Indeed, his best work has been on television. Without presence to carry a movie – even here, in the lesser of these two concurrently running romances, watching Devaine make love to Redgrave is a truly cringe-worthy moment in the picture; ditto, for Gere and Eichhorn’s flagrante delicto interruptus. Like making a clinical case study of a popinjay attempting to mate with a Pekinese, this latter scene is both pointless and passionless.  Much of Yanks was shot in Northern England. And although Schlesinger gets the period look just right, it is not enough to rectify the sins committed by his…um…stars, and the clumsily inserted ‘teachable message’ about racial bias. This comes out of nowhere and has no place within the story, other than to prove its point. Schlesinger may have been aiming to produce a perceptive period drama, deconstructing the prejudice of two cultures, but he rather ineptly inveigles his cast with this and other quiescent bits of interaction that stall, rather than buoy the romantic elements. In the end, Yanks never comes off as the introspective bit of ‘nostalgia imperfect’ its director hoped; the results, a lot of heavy hash at the box office. Some movies get rediscovered despite their initial reception. Yanks is not one that has improved, or even weathered the storm, with age.  

Twilight Time’s Blu-ray is derived from less than stellar elements a la MGM/Fox. Honestly, can the studio just commit to remastering their movies for hi-def? MGM has a particularly nasty history of cherry-picking which deep catalog titles it wants to show off to their best advantage, while others it continues to license in whatever condition to third-party distributors. TT’s release isn’t awful. But it is, like the movie itself, wholly lackluster. The image is muddy, with wan colors and inconsistently rendered grain. This toggles back and forth from heavy to non-existent, and, in spots, very much adopts an ugly digitized appearance that belies its film-based source. Contrast is passable, though occasionally a tad weaker than expected. Flesh tones are either washed out or pasty pink. The 2.0 DTS audio is, as the video elements, just present and accounted for without going the extra mile to distinguish itself. Ho-hum, and, the beat goes on. TT includes an isolated score/effects track, a theatrical trailer, and, an audio commentary featuring co-star, Chick Vennera, TT’s own Julie Kirgo, and the late, Nick Redman. Bottom line: a largely forgettable film that never rises above its mediocre casting. A disposable Blu too. Pass.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

2