100. Yankee Doodle Dandy(1942) directed by Michael Curtiz |
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My Thoughts Before I Watched It
I couldn't believe I had to start with this; it almost derailed the project before I even started. James Cagney, famous movie gangster, singing and dancing? Just bash my head in with a brick while you're at it. Plus I had the freaking title song running through my head the entire walk back from the video store. Suffice it to say this was not going to be a promising start to the journey.
The PremiseGeorge M. Cohan (Cagney), singer/actor/good American, is summoned to the White House and spills his life story to FDR. Fortunately, the movie is one big flashback; I couldn't take the My Dinner With Andre treatment with this.
Notes and Stuff- Aaagh! Colorized! Nothing against Ted Turner, but seriously, what is up with colorizing movies? It's like every force possible is trying to get me not to make it to the end of this film. Luckily, I can turn it off (the colorization, I mean).
- OK, this movie is definitely from the 40's; there's the smiling Negro butler at the White House. At least they didn't put someone in blackface.
- Cohan was born into a vaudeville family; unless there's some other reason his dad is on stage dancing around dressed like the Boston Celtics logo when his mom goes into labor.
- Oh my Lord. There they are in blackface.
- Was there really once a live theater in every sizeable town in America? Would vaudeville have a chance of surviving today? Does anyone like singing, dancing kids?
- Must be the prejudice of writers and filmmakers, but have you ever seen a film where an agent has been portrayed sympathetically? These guys all look like crosses between the two old coots from "Trading Places" and Statler & Waldorf.
- Wow. The title song was about a jockey?! I always assumed it was written merely so precociously precious 8-year-olds could ham it up in school President's Day pageants.
- I love when words change meanings, and I love even more when you take a situation where they intended the original meaning and project the other meaning on it. Case in point: the line in "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" that goes something like "we'll all be gay when Johnny comes marching home". That Johnny must be quite a guy, eh?
- When did patriotic jingoism go out of style? George's life just drips with it.
- I like that FDR is shown only from the back, that he has a booming Presidential voice, and that he's played by Captain Jack Young.
- OK, this movie is definitely from the 40's; there's the smiling Negro butler at the White House. At least they didn't put someone in blackface.
Newspaperman, on George: "He's the whole darned country squeezed into one pair of pants!"
SummaryYankee Doodle Dandy wasn't as bad as I feared; I'm not a big fan of musicals, except the South Park movie and maybe Fiddler on the Roof. I did learn that in addition to the interminable title song, Cohan wrote such gems as "Over There" and "You're A Grand Old Flag"; presumably, that vital information will help me win Jeopardy! one day. I hope so. Anyway, this movie proves how much time can change things, and how little some things are equipped to deal with the changes of time. In 1942 I may have walked out of the theater ready to sing, dance, and march on the Hun - in 2000, I just yawned and went to bed.
And that song is still in my head.
James Cagney as good American George M. Cohan, Joan Leslie as his ingenue-wife, Walter Huston as the good honest showbiz dad, and Captain Jack Young as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
