Yanks

My children were just babies when I saw this movie at the theater in 1979. I really loved it and have all these years. I guess the romance and the finality of goodbyes, not knowing what could happen made it all the more intense. The racism scene was hard to watch, very hard. I am sure things like that went on though. It is a treasure in my huge movie collection. I hope someday to visit England and be able to see some of the towns that were in this movie.Richard Gere is a wonderful Actor and this was the very first time I had heard about him or had ever seen him in a movie.He brought a realism to this part, he was a perfect guy to play an American soldier! Talking about it has made me want to look at it tonight!!

Just watched this film again for at least the tenth time since it's release and never fail to be impressed by the accuracy of its portrayal of Northern England. In fact this is the England I remember growing up in in the 1960s and it really only started to change around the 1970s when we finally seemed to recover from post war austerity. Shops looked like that when I was a kid in suburbs of Newcastle. Several people mention the power station mistakenly suggesting it was out of place as it was nuclear. Most power stations in the UK are coal powered and still look exactly like this and as the film was made in and around Stalybridge and the pennine towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire it may well have been Stalybridge which was built in 1926 and definitely never a nuclear plant. Lovely film and exactly as wartime was described in countless family discussions with our mams and dads. This was often the only adventure in their lives so it came up over and over again.

This is a beautifully judged and paced 1979 film by John Schlesinger, which explores wartime romance and a unique culture clash, with sensitivity, wit and an affectionate eye for the period in which it is set. The time, 1943/4; the place, a small town in the north of England; the parties, the US Army gathering for the invasion of mainland Europe, and the locals grateful for the military assistance but watchful for the virtue of their wives and daughters.

Richard Gere's Sergeant-Cook, Matt, is surely still one of his best and certainly most sympathetic roles. His love affair with shopkeeper's daughter Jean (Lisa Eichhorn) - together with another on/off romance further up the social scale between William Devane's Captain and Vanessa Redgrave's upper class lady - highlight the painful choice between love and loyalty which war often presents. Meanwhile, the sunnier, trouble-free pairing and marriage of boxer Danny (Chick Vennera) and happy-go-lucky Mollie (Wendy Morgan) demonstrates that war can offer fresh starts as well as tragic ends.

Though Schlesinger bases most of the film on the moral (and cinematic) values of the time in which it is set, he reminds us in one sequence of the segregation and race problems in the US Army, which would not be resolved until after the war (and of wider race problems in the US generally, which are still not resolved). Rightly, the movie makes no attempt to avoid emotion; and the ending with the troops, including Matt, Danny and the Captain, moving south to an uncertain future with the invasion force is genuinely moving.

Those of us who have seen some of the more recent wartime romance movies (e.g., Pearl Harbor) will be eternally grateful for this well-done picture with its ensemble cast. I liked it so much that I bought a copy on DVD.

This was the first time that I had seen William Devane and Lisa Eichorn in a movie, and I believe their performances were excellent. When William Devane, as the Captain, busts the NCOs for their conduct, it was the height of wartime realism at a human level.

I loved the little nuances ... the mother wrapping the string around her hand after she receives the gift of a cake from Richard Gere ... the little boy and the bicycle ... the steam rising up around the train at the end ... excellent touches ...

This movie presented the American actress Lisa Eichhorn to the world - and if for only that, we can be so terribly grateful to John Schlesinger. (I'm grateful to him for other reasons too: for Darling, for A Kind of Loving, for Far From the Madding Crowd, for Midnight Cowboy and many others).

Eichhorn's beauty, sensitivity, intelligence, warmth, reserve mixed with eager longing, her very movement, beguile and entrance. She is truly remarkable - and this performance (as well as those in The Europeans, King of the Hill and Cutter's Way) deserved an Oscar. I would certainly place her with Meryl Streep, Glen Close, Jessica Lange, Ellen Burstyn, Anne Bancroft, Blair Brown and Sissy Spacek in the top echelon of American actresses.

There seem to be worlds of emotion, of thought, of native refinement and wild longing within this girl as she struggles with her conscience, with her family, about her English fiance, and with her insecurity about her American romance. There is nothing in entertainment I would like as much as to see more of Lisa Eichhorn (wonderful in everything from screen to stage to television) - she's very special.

I think this movie one of the most romantic ever made - not the muted Devane-Redgrave romance - nor the unfortunately clicheed working class pair - but the most highlighted involving Gere and Eichhorn. It sweeps one completely off one's feet.

Apart from the romance, the movie is quite good in showing both Britain at home (some of the feeling of Hope and Glory) and in interaction with the Americans. It could just be me, but aren't the Americans exaggerating their accents slightly to show the difference? Perhaps Gere and Devane just sound more American in contrast.

This is a lovely memorable movie - well shot, wonderfully acted, with an ending that leaves one in tears. Do see it.