Posted 4/09/2011 09:56:00 PM by Douglas

I found a weird movie on cable, and I had to watch it. Partially because of the weird title, but mainly because it was written by the best Hollywood writer between Billy Wilder and before the Brothers Coen. I'm talking about, of course, Paddy Chayefsky, and the movie was The Americanization of Emily. Strange little anti-war, pro-boning Englishwomen during WWII, but I love the diatribe by James Garner about the "ugly American:"

You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town.

Ouch. And that came out of the mouth of a 36 year old James Garner. War is hell.

Fast forward to Kevin Kline and my now second favourite soliloquy denouncing the British and their smug superiority:

Oh, you English are *so* superior, aren't you? Well, would you like to know what you'd be without us, the good ol' U.S. of A. to protect you? I'll tell you. The smallest fucking province in the Russian Empire, that's what! So don't call me stupid, lady. Just thank me. If it wasn't for us, you'd all be speaking *German!* Singing "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles..."

Damn Brits.