The Americanization of Emily / Save the Tiger

THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, 1964, Warner Bros., 115 min. Director Arthur Hiller and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky skewer the cynical marketing of heroics during wartime. A gung-ho military PR officer (James Coburn) takes seriously the order of an insane general (Melvyn Douglas) to chronicle the first sailor to die landing on D-Day’s Normandy Beach, all to create a “Tomb of the Unknown Sailor.” Decidedly unheroic James Garner is stationed in Britain, has just started an affair with beautiful and opinionated Julie Andrews and gets saddled with the job by Coburn.

SAVE THE TIGER, 1973, Paramount, 100 min. Dir. John G. Avildsen (ROCKY). Los Angeles garment businessman Jack Lemmon suffers a devastating intersection of midlife crisis and disillusionment with what he sees as moral decline in changing times. His deepening trauma pushes him to the edge as he considers desperate and illegal measures to salvage his tanking fashion enterprise.