#98 - Yankee Doodle Dandy

What a great film for me to accidentally land upon at the start of our long 4th of July weekend. A grand spectacle, this 1942 movie musical is what '40s cinema was all about: fast talking, big stories, and a little bit of wisdom.

The story of "The Man Who Owns Broadway," the ultimate song-and-dance man George M. Cohan, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" will make you feel patriotic whether you watch it in early July or on a random Tuesday in November.

James Cagney, famous for his tough-guy gangster roles, raised a lot of eyebrows when he came out with this performance, and surprised a lot of people when he won the Oscar for Best Actor. Here he plays Cohan, a man who spends the entire film telling President Franklin Roosevelt his life story and is then awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor ("My father thanks you. My mother thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.").

The film went into principal production in December 1941, which at the time was one of the worst times to be an American. But now, in retrospect, we see it as the best time to be an American: we were all united under one flag, working together toward one common goal. And this movie decided to be a rallying tool -- a part was added that included the attack on Pearl Harbor. I'm beginning to love these movies that are made just as the events they are depicting are occurring. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" came out on June 6, 1942, and must have put a lump in the hearts of every American who saw it.

One of my favorite things hinted at in the film is the elusiveness of fame: here today, gone tomorrow. Cohan spends most the film as the most famous man in New York, notorious for coming out with the next big box-office success. But when he's relaxing in a hammock at his country house and some sock-hop teenagers come by with their jalopy, they don't know him from Adam. You can see the look of helplessness in his eyes when they plead ignorance, and it's even worse when he's marching beside a soldier to the tune of "Over There" (a song he wrote at the beginning of World War I) and the soldier asks him if he knows the words. Cohan just smiles, and says "Seems to me I do."

Cagney improvised this little bit, when Cohan is descending the stairs after being awarded the Medal of Honor. Classic. This is what the movie is all about: little touches to make you smile and big spectacles to make you smile bigger. It was entirely hopeful, no real conflict, but not obnoxiously sugar-sweet. It was just the simple story of a famous man's life, simple filmmaking that should be emulated more often. A+.