Yanks

It also succeeds superbly as social history of the impact of American soldiers on a British town in W.W.II.

I completely agree with the reviewer below about falling in love with the American actress Lisa Eichhorn playing a northern English shopkeeper's daughter in love with Richard Gere- I've been smitten ever since. Her beauty, reserve, intelligence, grace are extraordinary - she can somehow project vast depth in her character. (She does the same in her other movies - check out her name in imdb.com to rent them).

Gere is awfully good - unassuming, usually courteous, sweet -I like his dashing self in most other movies but he's just right here. Vanessa Redgrave is superb - Devane is ok - I might have preferred someone a bit more like Cliff Robertson in look, voice, gesture and manner to play the American officer so at ease with an English upper class woman - borrowing books, opining on English public schools, listening to her play the cello. Devane's voice is more that of a tough guy.

I'd also say the screenwriters skimp a bit in fleshing out the charcters of the two 'chippy' working class characters.

Gee - these are minor criticisms - this is a wonderful, heart swelling movie. That old phrase "see it with someone you love" is definitely appropriate - yet it's very much a movie with appeal to men and women.

Richard Gere is usually typecast as a stud, but in this film, he's more of a normal person, and he plays the part perfectly. This might be his best acting film.

The other actors are great, too: Vanessa Redgrave,William Devane, Chick Venerra, Lisa Eichorn and her parent, and her friend. The film is so believable and atypical of Hollywood films because the actors act naturally with no superficialities.

The plot is wonderful. My father was in England before the D-Day invasion, and he told me lots of stories about England. I've read that many American GI's actually fell in love and married English women, mainly because of the similarities of cultures and the nature of English women: they were sincere about love.

The music score is lush and tantalizing, reminding me of Aaron Copland's music. It greatly enhanced the movie's plot.I had just finished watching and adoring The Americanization of Emily, and watchingYanks was a real treat for me. Why doesn't Hollywood make more natural love story movies like Yanks, instead of weird provocative ones? Yanks should have won Oscars. I give it five stars.

Ricky Wallace