NFR Project: 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (1942)

 

NFR Project: “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

Dir: Michael Curtiz

Scr: Robert Buckner, Edmund Joseph

Pho: James Wong Howe

Ed: George Amy

Premiere: May 29, 1942

126 min.

Fun fact: does this film exist because someone called Jimmy Cagney a Communist?

Evidently, yes. According to Patrick McGillican in his Cagney: The Actor as Auteur, in 1940 Cagney and 15 others were named as Communists by the supposed American Communist chief John R. Leech. Cagney was cleared, but a publicity corrective was needed. His brother, producer William, reportedly said, “We're going to have to make the goddamndest patriotic picture that's ever been made. I think it's the Cohan story”. (Cagney was hostile to George M. Cohan – the grandly successful Broadway actor, playwright, composer, lyricist, producer [1878-1942] -- who had famously sided with management during the pivotal Actors’ Equity strike of 1919.)

The resulting film is perhaps Hollywood’s most patriotic film, but it is largely fantasy. Even at the time of its release, critics called it out for its numerous factual inaccuracies. Cohan himself was dying at the time of its making, and it is said that this was a film of his life as he had wanted it to be. It is the rosy, high-stepping story of an indomitable entertainer who loved his country. (Having Michael Curtiz direct and James Wong Howe as cinematographer increases by considerable odds the success of your film project.)

Cohan did start off as a boy performer with his family; here his egotism loses the family jobs until he learns his lesson and gets a spanking. (Warning: there is a brief scene of the Four Cohans in blackface. Racism was still casual in Movieland.) Nonetheless, he grows up into Cagney and, in that incarnation, he is compulsively watchable. Cagney’s natural go-get-it spirit and easy familiarity with the camera make him a magnetizing Cohan.

Cohan is blackballed for his arrogant behavior. He struggles, plugging his songs. He falls in love with and marries Mary (an amalgam of Cohan’s two wives). He makes a pitch for his musical, 1904’s Little Johnny Jones, containing the smash hit “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. Finally a success, his shows proliferate on Broadway.

A producer in the film summarizes his appeal to audiences of the day: “Now, you're making a great mistake. He's the most original thing on Broadway. You know why? Because he's the whole darn country, squeezed into one pair of pants. His writing, his songs, why even his walk and his talk. They all touch something way down here in people. Don't ask me why it is, but it happens every time the curtain goes up. It's pure magic. . ."

“I know his formula," responds a haughty singer. “A fresh young sprout gets rich between 8:30 and 11:00 p.m.”

“Yes,” says the producer. “George M. Cohan has invented the success story, and every American loves it because it happens to be his own private dream. He's found the mainspring in the antique clock. Ambition, pride, patriotism. That's why they call him the Yankee Doodle Boy.”

“Critics said musicals and cheap comedies were all I could write," says Cagney in voiceover. “I'd wave a flag, they said. Nothing else.” He writes “Mary” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and “Over There.”

And oh what musical numbers are conceived and carried off here! The camera captures the thrill in these performances, led by Cagney’s impeccable half-singing, half-chanting vocals and expert dancing in the stiff-legged style of Cohan himself. (Cagney won Best Actor for this uncharacteristic role, and proved himself an old song-and-dance man at heart.) Eventually, the camera moves into the action and the stage dissolves and we get epic stretches of tuneful patriotic fervor. The choruses of military men, brass bands, and general flag-waving is very stirring – just what America wanted to see at the beginning of its involvement in a world war the outcome of which was not yet certain. America is portrayed are the epitome of mankind’s hopes – as indeed, at the time it was, aspirationally.

He retires, he returns to the stage in an F.D.R. impression in the musical I’d Rather Be Right (1937).

The framing story of this narrative is that Cohan is summoned to the White House by Roosevelt himself. Cohan thinks he’s in trouble for making fun of the President, and he nervously narrates this smoothly-flowing stream of reminiscence of his life. In the end, F.D.R. awards him a Gold Medal from the American people “because of his ability to instill in the hearts of the growing citizenry a loyal and patriotic spirit for their country and what it stands for in the eyes of the world.” 

Cagney says, "I wouldn't worry about this country, if I were you. We got this thing licked. Where else in the world can a plain guy like me come in and talk things over with the head man?"

Roosevelt replies, "That's about as good a definition of America that I ever heard."

Cagney gratefully accepts the medal and descends the majestic staircase of the White House. As he walks down, he gently segues into a cheerful little tap routine. Supposedly, Cagney threw this bit in off the cuff; it is a perfect evocation of the character. Cagney deserved his Oscar.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Cabin in the Sky.