SERGEANT YORK 285
and included 121 live trees and a 200- foot stream mounted on a giant turntable to
allow for 16 basic camera angles. For the combat scenes, 300 workers under the
supervision of Art Director John Hughes spent three weeks turning an 80- acre site
at Warner Ranch in Calabasas, 20 miles west of Burbank, into a facsimile of the
war- torn battlefield at Chatel- Chehery. They used five tons of dynamite to blast
shell craters, installed 400 denuded tree trunks and stumps, and used 5,200 gallons
of paint to blacken them. Other battle scenes were filmed in the Simi Hills and the
Santa Susana Mountains (Toplin, 1996, pp. 82–101 and “Sergeant York (1941),” n.d.).
Principal photography on Sergeant York ran 13 weeks (3 February–1 May 1941).
Plot Summary
Alvin York (Gary Cooper), a hardscrabble farm boy from backwoods Tennessee, is
an expert marksman but also a wastrel fond of drinking and fighting, to the cha-
grin of his long- suffering mother (Margaret Wycherly). One day York meets Gra-
cie Williams ( Joan Leslie), is smitten, and works night and day to accumulate the
payment for a coveted “bottomland” (i.e., good soil) farm so she’ll marry him.
The land’s owner makes a verbal agreement with York, giving him an option on
the land, on the condition that he produces the rest of purchase price in 60 days.
When the due date arrives, York wins the amount that he needs during a target-
shooting contest, but then finds that the land owner has gone against him and
instead sold the land to York’s nemesis, Zeb Andrews (Robert Porterfield). York
turns to drink and plots his revenge for the betrayal he has suffered. As he moves
to assault the man who has swindled him, York is struck by a bolt of lightning
later in the night. He survives, but he loses both his mule and his gun in the pro-
cess. He enters a local church to find a revival in pro gress, and then has a religious
experience. The United States enters World War I [6 April 1917], and York soon
receives his draft notice. York attempts to evade the draft by claiming conscien-
tious objection, but his church is not officially recognized so he is forced to report
to Camp Gordon, Chamblee, Georgia, for basic training. His commanding officers
soon realize his superior marksmanship, and York is promoted to corporal and
given the job of rifle range instructor, but York is still against the war and the kill-
ing that comes with it. Major Buxton (Stanley Ridges) attempts to sway York in the
other direction, giving him a history lesson about the long tradition of American
sacrifice. He grants York a leave of absence to think over his options, promising
the corporal a recommendation for exemption due to conscientious objection if he
does not change his mind. While York is fasting and mediating on a mountaintop
with competing texts—an American history book and his Bible— the wind blows
his Bible open to a famous verse that appears in the gospels of Matthew, Mark,
and Luke: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto
God the things that are God’s.” York chooses to return to his unit, confirming that
he is willing to fight in the war. York’s unit is soon shipped to France, and he takes
part in an assault led during the Meuse- Argonne Offensive on 8 October 1918.
Facing heavy machine- gun fire, the unit’s lieutenant tells Sergeant Early ( Joe Sawyer)
to get a group of men together and ambush the machine- gun nests. Casualties
winnow down the detachment, making York the last remaining unwounded non-
commissioned officer, so Early puts him in charge of the squad making the attack.