Gimme That Old Time Religion!
Alvin York is a good-for-nothing hoodlum in his Tennessee hometown. At least, that's what most of the townsfolk think. The most they ever really see of Alvin is when he and his buddies get boozed up and ride around hootin' and hollerin' on horseback, shooting their guns and generally being a dangerous nuisance.
But Alvin's mother knows the truth, that there is a different side to her son. His drinking problem and his violent temper aside, he's done a commendable job of looking after the York family ever since the death of his father, working their farm and pretty much singlehandedly taking care of his mother and his two younger siblings. He's also one of the finest sharpshooters in town. When he's sober, anyway. Unfortunately, the times when Alvin is sober are few and far between lately.
Desperate, Mrs. York asks their cousin, local preacher Pastor Rosier Pile, to try and talk some sense into her hellraising son. It doesn't go so well - Alvin isn't in much of a mood to listen. During one of his rare moments of sobriety, Alvin meets and falls in love with local girl Gracie Williams, but his brutish and antagonistic nature, including beating up and driving off a fellow suitor, aren't exactly endearing him to her. Not quite getting the hint, Alvin gets it into his head that if he can own his own piece of land, Gracie will come around and agree to marry him, so he swears off the booze for a while and starts doing odd jobs in an effort to buy some land.
However, when the man selling the land swindles him and sells it to the suitor Alvin beat up, a despairing Alvin hits the bottle again and becomes worse than ever. One dark and stormy night, he drunkenly decides to get his rifle and go and murder the land salesman for cheating him, over the objections of his buddies. On the way, though, a bolt of lightning strikes his gun, and an instantly sobered-up Alvin comes to the conclusion that this is a sign from God.
He swears of drinking and becomes a pacifist. He begins making amends with everyone he's ever wronged and everyone who's ever wronged him impressing Gracie with his new ways and making her fall in love with him. But just as things are looking up for Alvin, the US enters the Great War against Germany. Alvin, who now considers violence and killing morally wrong, tries to opt out as a conscientious objector, but the military isn't having it. His sharpshooting skills are just too good for them to pass up.
Fortunately, his life in the Army isn't all that bad. His superior Major Buxton is sympathetic to his views, and Alvin also meets and befriends "Pusher" Ross and Bert Thomas. His shooting skills soon earn him a promotion to corporal as well. All too soon, though, they're being shipped off to Europe. They aren't there long before Bert gets killed by enemy mortar fire, and, under the command of Sergeant Early, they storm a heavily-fortified German position.
They wind up pinned down by enemy fire, but capture the Germans' commanding officer Major Vollmer. A wounded Early gives Alvin command. Can the conflicted Alvin find a way of winning the battle by killing as few enemy soldiers as possible? Is there a way to stop the killing but still hold true to his pacifist beliefs?
Sergeant York is an amazing movie that shows how a man can change himself to become a better person, and take this betterment with him to use his pacifist ideals to bring a conflict to as non-violent a conclusion as possible, actions for which he'd earn the Medal of HRead full review
