Winter of '42

By Frank Rich

Directed by John Schlesinger Screenplay by Colin Welland and Walter Bernstein

The surest way to enjoy Yanks is to come to it with precisely the right expectations. This film is so lavish, so long (2 hr. 20 min.) and so overstuffed with talent that one at first expects an epic of Homeric proportions. As it gradually turns out, Director John Schlesinger has a trifle up his sleeve, not a bombshell: Yanks is nothing more and nothing less than an extravagant soap opera about star-crossed lovers on the British home front during World War II. The results are often entertaining, but only for audiences who are prepared to open their tear ducts and put their brains on hold. Admirers of Schlesinger's weightier efforts--Midnight Cowboy; Sunday, Bloody Sunday--should trim their sails accordingly.

The film's setting is an idealized Lancashire town where American G.I.s are stationed while waiting to invade the Continent. The plot is Hollywood's ancient love-today-for-tomorrow-we-die formula, taken to the third power: three Yanks of varying rank (Richard Gere, William Devane, Chick Vennera) relentlessly pursue three Englishwomen of varying social status (Lisa Eichhorn, Vanessa Redgrave, Wendy Morgan). Since two of the heroines have home-town heartthrobs fighting overseas, the American interlopers meet with some early but usually temporary setbacks. By the time the movie reaches its climax--an irresistible train station farewell, complete with chorus of I'll Be Seeing You--one is fully convinced that World War II was the best thing to happen to romance since the invention of the waltz.

Schlesinger enriches Yanks' conventional plot machinations with fine atmospheric details and fetching performances. The movie's locations include quaint shops and pubs, foggy, blacked-out streets, a glorious art deco movie palace and enough green pastures to make even an Irishman go dizzy. Most of the cast accomplish the not inconsiderable feat of standing out against the colorful backdrops. Though Gere at times slips into self-conscious mannerisms, he makes his character, a mess sergeant from Arizona, an appealing innocent abroad. Devane is a charming commanding officer, despite his disconcerting tendency to sound like Jack Nicholson. Both Eichhorn (a gifted screen newcomer) and Redgrave show enough backbone to prevent their roles, a shopgirl and an aristocrat, from softening into hopeless cliches.

Aside from sexual lassitude, the biggest problem with these lovers is that there are too many of them. Only the Gere-Eichhorn romance is fully told, complete with subsidiary characters (Eichhorn's parents, well acted by Rachel Roberts and Tony Melody). The remaining couples are superficially sketched and add little to the film except length. There are other excesses as well: a thrown-in sub plot about Redgrave's troubled young son, some muddled digressions about British-American cultural conflicts, and a grueling military race riot. Besides wasting time, these intrusions are pretentious; the director seems to be trying to convince himself that Yanks is something more than a tearjerker. In the process, he insults the audience. Director Schlesinger should not be ashamed to have made Yanks, any more than viewers should be embarrassed to respond to its modest pleasures.

-- Frank Rich

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