Yankee Doodle Dandy
is one of the best movies ever made.
Not greatest, mind you: as far as I know, it didn’t do much to change or
advance the medium of film. But
it’s one of the best because it’s so energetic, so ebullient, so flag-wavingly
patriotic, and so much fun that you can’t help but love it.
James Cagney plays George M. Cohan, a man who grew up
performing with his family in vaudeville.
As he matured, he developed into a pillar of the Broadway scene. He wrote, produced, and starred in hit
after hit, and he penned canonical American music such as “Give My Regards to
Broadway,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and “Over There.” As the film tells it, he was also a swell guy.
This is a musical biography long on production numbers and
Horatio Alger allusions, and it works due to Cagney’s effervescence. And here’s the amazing thing: prior to
this film, Cagney had been known as a ‘tough guy’ actor, with hits such as The Roaring Twenties and Angels with Dirty Faces. When he sang and danced and mugged his
way across the screen, audiences were as amazed as we would be if Jason Statham
revealed that he’s been studying tap for the last twenty years and has the
moves to prove it. The film won
Cagney an Academy Award for Best Actor and, though he went on to play tough
guys once more in classics like White
Heat, it changed Hollywood’s view of him forever.
But that’s neither here nor there. For us, Yankee Doodle
Dandy offers a delightful story, characters we can get behind, and
production numbers we can remember for years to come. As an added bonus, it has such a great ending that it
motivates us to be better than ourselves.
This is a wonderful film. If you haven’t, you owe it to yourself to see Yankee Doodle Dandy.
