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THE WAR AT HOME -- Gary Cooper's diffident strength made him the ideal actor to play the reluctant hero. It was the role in which America had cast itself in the Great War, and, in 1941, as Hitler's armies ravaged Europe, debate raged in the U.S. over the prospect of a repeat performance. That year, Cooper starred in Howard Hawks's rousing "Sergeant York"-- the two-disk centerpiece of "Gary Cooper--The Signature Collection" (Warner)--a First World War drama that was instantly recognized as effective interventionist propaganda.

The film is based on the true story of Alvin York, a hell-raising dirt farmer from Tennessee who repented and became a devout Christian. Drafted in 1917, he sought conscientious-objector status--unsuccessfully--and grudgingly reported to boot camp. A sympathetic commanding officer sent York back home to reflect on the war effort, equipping him with a book of American history. Inspired by this secular scripture, York, a renowned marksman, brought his turkey-hunting skills to the European battlefields and famously captured a hundred and thirty-two German soldiers. York sold his story with the proviso that he be played by Cooper. Hawks, yielding to the earnest occasion, filmed the tale with a good-humored sentimentality. Jolted by the film's hortatory power, isolationist ...