OH MY GOD. Seems The Americanization of Emily, one of my favorite relatively-unknown classics, is available in full on YouTube (and in handy playlist form, at that). It's been up for over a month, which is a good sign that the YouTube Copyright Gestapo isn't on the hunt for it in particular, but these things often vanish suddenly so get it while you can. To whet your appetite, here is an appropriately bizarre and incoherent trailer:

Don't let the black & white fool you, this was 1964; the young James Garner plays opposite the younger Julie Andrews in a biting satire of war and war-politics. Almost unknown and criminally underrated, this is everything Dr. Strangelove should have been: calm, intelligent, and devastating. (I hold Dr. Strangelove, like all of Kubrick, to be criminally OVERrated, but that's for another day.) It's not a great film, to be sure -- the directing is lackluster, and Julie Andrews is not exactly known for her dramatic range -- but the writing alone makes it more than worthwhile. Paddy Chayefsky, who you probably know as the guy who wrote Network in 1976 and then died, is the force at work here; Americanization of Emily is one of a series of movies he did as he transitioned out of 1950s TV and radio. (I'm not qualified to comment on the rest of Chayefsky's work -- the only one I've seen is the absurd Paint Your Wagon from 1969, with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood, singing. Let me tell you, the only worthwhile thing about seeing Paint Your Wagon is that you can subsequently say you sat through it -- a not insubstantial accomplishment, actually. ...I'm digressing.)

I imagine that some of you shiftless, MTV-addled teenagers will lack the patience to watch this whole movie (and you productive, career-building Harvard types certainly won't have the time); if so, I demand you at least watch this one scene. Here, James Garner devastates Julie Andrews' war-widow mother at a garden tea party, delivers a subversive speech about the virtues of cowardice, and in his grinning, clean-cut, all-American way, starts the 1960s. Skip to 3:27 and watch through into the next clip.

I'll leave you with that to ponder, and for heaven's sake, watch the entire movie. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your weekend; this is an open thread.