Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Yankee Doodle Dandy
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph
1942/USA
Warner Bros
Repeat viewing/Warner Home Video DVD
#163 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] George M. Cohan: It seems it always happens. Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we’re a push-over all ready to be blackjacked. And it isn’t long before we’re looking up, mighty anxiously, to be sure the flag’s still waving over us.[/box]

James Cagney richly deserved his Oscar for this flag-waving musical biography.

This is the Cohan-approved story of Cohan’s life.  Cohan (Cagney) tells the tale to President Roosevelt in flashback when he is called into receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for his songs “Grand Old Flag” and “Over There”.  The film traces the showman’s story from his beginnings as part of his family’s vaudeville act, through the tough times trying to sell his first show, his courtship of his (fictional) wife Mary (Joan Leslie), to his overwhelming success on Broadway and on to old age.  With Walter Huston as Cohan’s father, Rosemary DeCamp as his mother, and Richard Whorf as his partner Sam Harris.

This is a sentimental favorite from my youth when I watched it over and over on my parent’s TV.  The production numbers are still fantastic as is Cagney’s performance.  The story may stray over into sentimentality and morale-boosting patriotism but the times called for that, I think.

Yankee Doodle Dandy won three Academy Awards: Best Actor; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated for an additional five awards: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (Huston); Best Writing, Original Story; and Best Film Editing.

Clip – “Yankee Doodle Boy”