Daily Archives: August 20, 2014

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Posted on August 20, 2014 | 6 comments

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”

 

 

 

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1942

Random Harvest (1942)

Posted on August 20, 2014 | 2 comments

Random Harvest
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Claudine West, George Froeschel, and Arthur Wimperis based on the novel by James Hilton
1942/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Paula: Oh Smithy, You’re ruining my makeup.[/box]

Some tearjerkers make me cry.  Others do not.  This one does.

Charles Ranier (Ronald Colman) is a shell-shocked WWI veteran who has lost his memory and has difficulty speaking.  His identity is unknown so he is called “John Smith”. He has been placed in an asylum where he is gradually improving.

Attracted by noise coming from the local town on Armistice Day, he walks out of the asylum.  Music hall singer Paula (Greer Garson) sees the dazed man and takes pity on him.  Her pity grows to love and she nurses him back to health.  They eventually marry and have a son.  Charles becomes well enough to sell some articles to the Liverpool newspaper.  When the paper offers him a job, he goes off for an interview in the city leaving Paula and their newborn son behind.

Charles is hit by a car in Liverpool.  This knock on the head restores his memory of his life up to his trauma in WWI but erases his memory of the preceding three years.  It turns out Charles is the son of an immensely wealthy family.  He goes home and is soon put in charge of the family business.  He becomes known as “The Prince of English Industry” and starts a courtship with his brother’s young stepdaughter (Susan Peters).  All the while, he is nagged by brief glimmers of his lost memory.

After some time, Paula locates Charles and gets a job as his executive assistant.  She becomes indispensable to him.  On medical advice, she does not reveal her identity as his wife.  Many years pass as things seem more and more hopeless for poor Paula.   Until they get better, that is ….  With Henry Travers, Reginald Owen, and Una O’Connor in small parts.

The story is transparently manipulative but it works a treat on me, thanks largely to the fantastic performances by Colman and Garson.  Colman, in particular, is brilliant.  The one distraction is that he seems to me much too old for the role.  It doesn’t matter much once one is into the story.  If you like this type of romance, the film should not be missed.

Random Harvest was nominated for seven Academy Awards:  Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actor; Best Supporting Actress (Peters); Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Herbert Stothart).

Clip – Smithy proposes

 

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Posted in 1942