The Americanization of Emily

London. May, 1944. With the US Navy, Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison is seen as one of the best of the "Dog-Robbers": an officer who takes care of all the comfort needs of his commanding officer, in his case Admiral William Jessup. Those comfort needs include any luxury goods generally unavailable to the public, especially difficult to get in wartime Britain, and the services of females for whatever purpose. British war widow Emily Barham, who works in the motor pool and has often been Charlie's driver since he's been back in London, is one of the few women who is immune to Charlie's charms as she sees him as being the American stereotype of cowardly, selfish, and ruthless, Charlie admitting he unabashedly so in being proud that he, in his job, will see no combat, a former stint in the Marines which turned him off such. Charlie, in turn, views Emily as a typical upper crust British prude. It is thus somewhat of a surprise that she succumbs to his charms in the two entering into a casual relationship. It is the fact that he is a coward that attracts her to him in knowing that she will not lose yet another loved one in the war. That casual relationship turns to love on both sides as they decide to get married. The situation changes when the Admiral, who is in London to make a case for the value of the Navy in the war and thus the Navy's pure survival as an entity, comes up with the idea that they will make a propaganda movie of the imminent D-Day, specifically of the first person to storm the beaches of France being a Navy man. Further, the Admiral wants a subsequent monument of a Tomb of the Unknown Sailor where the first Navy man killed on D-Day will be buried. While Charlie sees it solely as a useless public relations exercise, it becomes worse for him when the Admiral orders him to make the movie himself, filming such for which Charlie is not willing to die. Making it worse for Charlie is knowing that the order was issued and the impetus of the plan devised as the Admiral was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, something that he would have difficulties exposing in his affection for the Admiral. It further potentially affects what happens between Charlie and Emily as Charlie tries to figure out a scheme to get out of the problem, which may expose in Charlie what Emily truly cannot tolerate in a husband.