Not just your average "gung-ho" war film.

Gary Cooper gives an Academy Award-winning performance (Best Actor, 1941) as Sergeant Alvin C. York, a Tennessee hell-raiser-turned-pacifist Christian-turned-war hero. York's journey toward immortality (he won the Medal of Honor for his actions in France) began with a drunken brawl in a Kentucky tavern, and ended when he single-handedly captured 132 German soldiers on the fields of Flanders during World War I.

The acting in "Sergeant York" is fabulous. Cooper is simply superb as the reticent, conscience-stricken York. He is ably supported by Walter Brennan as his pastor, Rosier Pile; and Joan Leslie as his girlfriend Gracie.

"Sergeant York" is much more than just a "gung-ho" war film; it explores with great sensitivity and relevance (even by today's standards) the eternal human conflict between personal beliefs and public responsibilities. In my book, this will always rank as one of the greatest films ever to come out of Hollywood.

Brilliant, And Bittersweet

Sergeant York is one of the great films of all time. Justly heralded for the performances -- especially the superb Gary Cooper -- and writing, direction, Max Steiner's score, etc. What isn't often mentioned is how bittersweet is the ending. Prior to going to war, Alvin York had been too poor to purchase a piece of bottom land for farming. Called to war, he resisted. He was a pacifist, against killing. However, in a stunning scene on a mountain ledge, York finally agrees to fight the German enemy. He single-handedly captures 132 prisoners, and kills dozens of others. For this, he is hailed a hero and becomes America's most-decoarated WW I soldier. And finally gets his bottom land. However, he has only earned this bottom land because he went against his pacifist beliefs -- "thou shall not kill". The land is given to him for the very act of killing. How ironic and bittersweet. How apt is Cooper's closing line: "The Lord sure does move in mysterious ways." Don't miss this film.

As Good As It Gets

Next to "Red River" this is Howard Hawks' greatest achievement, which is to say one of the greatest American films ever made. A relatively true-to-life depiction of the Tennessee hill farmer who found himself caught up in the nightmare of WWI, it would be memorable enough just for its wonderful re-creation of the the back-country life and dialect. Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan never surpassed the performances they gave here as Alvin York and his neighbor and pastor Rosier Pile, and the rest of the cast shines just as brightly, particularly Margaret Wycherly as York's mother, and George Tobias as his comrade in arms. York won international fame when he accepted the surrender of more than 100 German soldiers about a month before the end of the war. Although York showed amazing heroism and marksmanship in the encounter, both he and Hawks knew full well that the German army was played out by that point and in many areas was surrendering en masse. Some sense of that is built into the project, to everyone's credit, and the picture's finest moment comes when Cooper says firmly "I'm not proud of what when on over there." Both Howard Koch of "Casablanca" fame and John Huston worked on the script.