The soldier's actor's tale

John Sweet, proving F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong, got a second act in life. Now he's even getting a curtain call.

Fitzgerald, of course, is the fellow who once famously noted that "there are no second acts in American lives." Sweet, a Chatham County retiree, is the fellow who got one. He had an unexpected moment in the sun six decades ago, then spent almost the rest of his life in obscurity. But Sweet was lucky enough to see yet another reversal of fortune.

First, the backstory: In 1943, Sweet was a sergeant in the U.S. Army serving in London. He was a typist, which meant his days weren't exactly action-packed. To fight off boredom, he joined a theater group and ended up with a leading role in a Red Cross-sponsored play.

At the same time, a leading British film director was preparing to shoot a movie called "A Canterbury Tale," and he needed someone to play an American sergeant stationed in England. A number of American movie stars were already in England serving in the military -- Jimmy Stewart and Burgess Meredith among them -- but the U.S. officials wouldn't release them from their duties for moviemaking purposes. Their reasoning was that it sent the wrong message to the grunts in foxholes if movie-star soldiers got the easy duty.

So the director asked if he could recruit an ordinary Joe for the part. When told he could, he picked Sweet.

The film was a mix of detective story and portrait of small-town English life. Sweet's character, along with a British soldier and a young, attractive lass from London, become temporarily stranded in a village as they make their way to Canterbury. Someone in the village is attacking women at night by pouring glue in their hair, and the three stars naturally solve the mystery. They then proceed to Canterbury, where each receives an unexpected blessing.

The film got mixed reviews, but Sweet's performance was universally praised. Critics gushed, comparing him to Gary Cooper and calling him "the best of America in battledress." It's easy to see why: In the movie, Sweet is good-natured, laconic and guileless. He's a steady hand in tense situations, and reliably humorous otherwise. In short, he's everything we think of as quintessentially American.

But little came of his acclaimed turn in the film. Sweet fumbled away some opportunities, while the ones he seized eventually fizzled. He ended up as a teacher in a New York high school -- which is to say, he became a small-print footnote to cinema history. Fifty-seven years later, however, an amazing thing happened. A revival of interest in the movie resulted in Sweet's being rediscovered by cinemaphiles. He was brought to England in 2000, hailed and toasted, and even became the subject of a documentary film. He got his second act.

You couldn't find "A Canterbury Tale" in video stores, though, and it rarely (if ever) popped up on TV. You might hear about Sweet's star-making performance, but you couldn't see it. But one day last week, to my astonishment, I came across a newly released DVD of "A Canterbury Tale." Sweet's path from fame to obscurity is amply chronicled, both in an accompanying disc and booklet.

I called Sweet, who recently turned 90, to tell him the news. He said he'd heard a DVD was in the works. "What is still mysterious to me is how this movie has become a cult film," he added.

I can venture an answer to that: Because there's a great backstory behind it.