Movie Review: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Note: This is #19 in my 52 Classic Movies in 52 Weeks challenge for 2009.

Well, my first real musical in this little experiment. Yankee Doodle Dandy is both a musical and a biographical picture. It tells the story of George M. Cohan (James Cagney), who was a man of many talents on the stage and who wrote a bunch of snappy songs about how totally awesome America is, including the eponymous “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Over There.”

The movie tells the story of Cohan’s life, starting with his early days in a family stage act through his rise to a major star and through his retirement. There are musical numbers scattered all through the biography, and what’s interesting is that the film makers don’t have to contrive any kind of reason for the actors to break into a song and dance. We just see the Cohans performing the stage productions before an audience. Some of the pieces were pretty elaborate, like the whole “Yankee Doodle Dandy” piece where Cohan participates in a horse race. And James Cagney, who I always thought of as “that guy in all those gangstar movies” was surprisingly good at singing and dancing.

Other than that, it’s a pretty standard rags to riches, American dream kind of biography. George Cohan rises through the top of his profession through a combination of talent, hard work, and smarmy self-confidence. Then the world passes him by after his career has peaked.

The main problem I had with the movie was that it was long at 126 minutes, and felt even longer than that. I know it’s attempting a relatively complete examination of Cohan’s life, but it really did drag at certain points. Still, that aside it’s not bad.

Also this week, Jeremy reviewed The Searchers.

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