" . . . a poem lovely as WWIII." This is the sort of doggerel verse by Sgt. Joyce Kilmer that bogged down America's efforts to win WWI, THE FIGHTING 69th documents. (Sgt. Kilmer was a member of that unit.) As if it weren't bad enough for future generations of American Youth to suffer through Kilmer's School of Emmeline Grangerford Rhyming* every "Arbor Day," Sgt. Kilmer demoralized his fellow Doughboys by muttering morbid verses on the march such as the one he (in the guise of actor Jeffrey Lynn) voices about 50 minutes into this flick. His company's most perceptive member, "Pvt. Jerry Plunkett" (James Cagney), is the first to realize that Kilmer's grotesque defeatism is distracting and demoralizing the entire Expeditionary Force, and that if this jaded gibberish gets translated into French and British, then surely the Allies will lose the War. Swallowing his pride, Jerry springs into action by brilliantly feigning cowardice to engineer Kilmer's battlefield demise. With no one else cursed by the warped sensibilities of Joyce Adverse, Sgt. Kilmer is laid low himself in a muddy ditch without a single stanza--not so much as a couplet. This frees up Jerry to lead his reviving comrades almost single-handedly, winning the War in short order.
*Please see chapters 17 through 19 of Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.
*Please see chapters 17 through 19 of Mark Twain's THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.