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”
This is my favorite Cagney performance. He is better known now for playing gangsters, but this showed he had some real musical chops.
The funny thing is that I first thought of Cagney as a song and dance man. We had a show in Los Angeles when I was growing up called the Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9 where they showed the same movie nine times a week. This was one of them and it was on frequent rotation at my house, unlike the gangster movies which I don’t think I saw until I was an adult.
Cagney is awesome as a dancer and showman and I enjoyed this film mostly for that reason. I wish he had done more movies along this line rather than all those gangster flicks.
Some day when you have time, you should try Footlight Parade (1933) if you haven’t seen it. Cagney does several wonderful dance routines in that one.
I know, I reviewed that one. It is to this date my favorite musical of the thirties and there is some tough competition there and all thanks to Mr. Cagney.
Oh, I had forgotten that it was on the list!