Sergeant York

hagiography, noun, pl. -phies.
1. the writing of saints' lives.
2. a book about saints' lives.
3. (Figurative.) a biography that adulates or idolizes its subject.

Sergeant Alvin York won the Medal of Honor in WWI for killing 22 Germans and forcing 132 others to surrender in battle in the Argonne Forest. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch called it "the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe." Hollywood told his story in 1941, just as America was gearing up for another go at the Germans.

Gary Cooper played the titular soldier, a man who sought conscientious objector status but rogered up when his application was denied. Though hampered by clunky dialogue (“I’m’a tellin’ ya that I’m’a gonna marry ya!”), Cooper gamely played the wide-eyed innocent, relying on the same bag of tricks he’d later use in PRIDE OF THE YANKEES. He does a fine job of giving us the sinner turned saint turned hero, and he’s aided by the great Walter Brennan in the role of backwoods pastor.

But there’s a problem with SERGEANT YORK. I fired up this movie expecting a WWI drama. What I got was a roughly 1.8-hr celebration of rural Tennessee wrapped around a brief military interlude. While I understand that I was watching a hagiography, I’d have been very interested to learn about how backwoodsmen like York fit into the Army culture of the WWI era. The more I think about it, the more this movie makes me want to see a modern retelling of York’s story. What was it like that day in the Argonne? How did York adjust to his status of national hero (This version tells us that he shrugged it off and went back to farming.)? Who was this guy?

On second thought, I don’t think a movie can answer all my questions about this interesting character. I’m off to the library.