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Tagline: Based on the story of GEORGE M. COHAN with the Greatest of all his Great Music

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CAGNEY & LESLIE

Don't you love it when you're watching a movie, and halfway through you realize you've been smiling the whole time? And that before you know it, it's over? And that stupid smile is still stuck all over your face? Well then SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the movie for you, and...oops, sorry, typo. I meant...YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (1942) is the movie for you. And though the acting, directing, script and, well, everything in this movie are beyond wonderful, let's face it, this movie is carried to us on the shoulders of one James Francis Cagney, Jr.

I don't want to go into my "I hate biopics" rant again, so let's just shortcut that and say I hate biopics. So what is it about this one that's so different? I believe the answer to that is the word "joy." There is such an inherent love for the characters that it just makes you want to follow them through good times and bad. There's nothing wooden or false (well, except for some of the facts) here. It also doesn't hurt that this movie is about a charismatic man, played by a charismatic man. Movie mega-star James Cagney plays Broadway mega-star (writer, producer, singer, actor, dancer, songwriter) George M. Cohan. Cohan got a congressional Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt for his patriotism, and Cagney got his only Academy Award for his performance of Cohan.

Audiences probably didn't expect Cagney, who up till then was famous for playing gangsters, to be a song and dance man, but the truth is he was crooning and hoofing on stage before he was in the movies. It's true that Fred Astaire turned down the role, but Cagney filled his dance shoes just fine, maybe even better (I suppose we'll never know). That dirty, double-crossing rat Cagney's joy infects us at every turn, helping to create one of the most lovable characters in film. I mean, how can you not love a man who, after one of his plays flops, apologizes to the public?

The movie opens with sexagenarian George M. Cohan and his 57 year old wife Mary, played by Joan Leslie (she turned 17 during the shoot, yet pulls off the age thing nicely). George is scurrying out of the theater he's performing in because he's been summoned to meet President Roosevelt. While telling the Prez his life story, we flashback. It's George himself that takes us through his life, and what led him from poor boy to "The Man Who Owned Broadway" to a meeting with the President of the United States of America. BTW, the actor who plays F.D.R. (his back is always to us) was not the same as the one who provided the voice. You know, like Larry David doing George Steinbrenner's voice on SEINFELD. Anyway...

George's storytelling begins with his birth, a little odd thing that the audience will overlook, as how can he possibly know what happened that day.

It's a great sequence where his performer dad Jerry (Walter Huston) leaves his show (like son, like father) and hijacks a parade to get him to see his newborn. And it's the 4th of July...at least that's the (untrue) story Cohan stuck to his whole life. As a kid, George joins the family act, now called the Four Cohans (he has an older sister, Josie, the grown-up version played by Cagney's real sister Jeanne). Those years saw a struggling family finally get a break in a show called PECK'S BAD BOY, but like his stage character, George is an egotistical braggart too big for his short pants. "I wonder what took me so long to become a star?," he bellows. Cocky George winds up ruining an opportunity for the theatrical family. This helps us understand that:

It's George's world, and if he steps on a few toes, or manipulates a few people, he's going to get what he wants. But isn't that how it's supposed to be done? Go out and get what you want? What I love about this character is that he never, ever loses that drive and ambition. Even as he gets older, George never gives up. He's got all the candy.

DANDY follows Cohan through all of his Broadway hits (he wrote dozens of musicals and hundreds of songs) as well as dealing with his personal (and somewhat fictionalized) life.

My favorite scene in the movie, **(SPOILER SENTENCE)** okay, maybe it ties for my favorite with his father's death scene, okay, yeah, and also the White House steps scene, and, anyway...is where he meets his future wife Mary (in real life, there was no Mary...she was invented for the film, as Cohan stipulated there'd be no mention of either of his two wives). Aside from its pure amusement value, this scene, where Mary thinks George is an old man (he's still in his stage make-up) not only sets the tone for these two (he plays a trick on her), but pays off later when she gets him back by making him squirm (and propose!) while pretending she doesn't know he gave a song about her to someone else (later, he gets her back by not telling her he already took the part in a show she was meant to talk him into doing). The cocky actor and the naive (but not for long) actress are perfect in that first scene together and they stay perfect through to the end of the movie.

Though some of the facts are made up for dramatic license (Cohan wasn't doing the show about Roosevelt called I'D RATHER BE RIGHT when he left for the White House), and others on Cohan's mandate (he also had casting, wardrobe and script approval), so much of what occurs in DANDY is true. "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you," is how George and family took their bows in real life and in the movie. And that incredibly heartfelt letter from George to his dad sure seems like a movie moment, but it's supposedly the same words he actually wrote to his dad (during yet another fantastic scene). There's also a barrel full of subtler moments, many of them Cagney ad libs (that old man teeth chattering comes to mind).

DANDY is filled with Cohan's tunes, both patriotic (OVER THERE, YOU'RE A GRAND OLD FLAG, THE YANKEE DOODLE BOY...better known as I'M A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY) and not (HARRIGAN, GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY, MARY'S A GRAND OLD NAME), as well as other people's songs. Among these is the Rodgers and Hart song from I'D RATHER BE RIGHT (the show that bookends DANDY) called OFF THE RECORD, a song so reminiscent of THESE ARE THE LAWS OF MY ADMINISTRATION, which Groucho sings in DUCK SOUP, that I have to guess writer George S. Kaufman had his mitts in both (among his many achievements, Kaufman co-wrote RIGHT with Moss Hart, and was a Marx Brothers writer).

While we're on the subject of patriotism, there was a lot of speculation about why Cagney made this movie. Communist hunts were beginning, and Cagney, a liberal (and FDR supporter) was supposedly on the list of people to talk to. So what better thing to counter that than star as the is-anyone-more-patriotic-than-George M. Cohan. But it doesn't really matter whether this is the reason or not, the outcome is less about jingoism and more about passion. Truth be told, this was a great time in America's history to do a patriotic movie, especially when it shows citizens signing up for World War I, while in real life they were enlisting for World War II. During the filming of YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Apparently, Cohan's real life cockiness and ego never waned. In the late 1930s Cohan wanted a movie made about him. He approached Samuel Goldwyn (the G in MGM) and pitched the idea of getting Fred Astaire, but it wasn't until Jack Warner (of the Brothers) approached him that the movie got rolling. With a few writers, including the fabulous Epstein Brothers (CASABLANCA), whose pass made the drama fun and funny, and director Michael Curtiz (also CASABLANCA, which came out that same year), DANDY was on its way. Also enlisted, Don Siegel (later, director of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ and DIRTY HARRY), who did all those creative montages used to show the passage of time, and the wicked eye of cinematographer James Wong Howe (this marks the fifth time a movie that Howe shot was screened at RMC). And of course:

James Cagney was a Cohan freak before he was famous, even auditioning for one of his shows. And then, years later, he got to play his idol. Wow. Imagine playing your idol. That's part of the reason the "joy" I mentioned earlier flows so freely. Cagney, who only danced in one movie before this (FOOTLIGHT PARADE), used Cohan's choreographer Johnny Boyle to train him, making the musical numbers not only more accurate, but more vibrant, especially the thrilling THE YANKEE DOODLE BOY. As well as moving like Cohan, Cagney also mimicked his talk-singing style.

Sadly, Cohan was dying when DANDY came out. The story goes, and this could have been right out of a movie about making this movie, that his chauffeur took him around Times Square and Broadway one last time. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY was playing, and they went in. "What an act to follow," he reportedly said. That was the last time he saw Broadway, dying soon after. But his songs are part of our blood. Somehow, we know them before we enter the world, and take them with us when we leave. They're just there, like land, air, and the colors red, white and blue. I get so caught up in the movie's firecracker enthusiasm that it makes me happy knowing it was shot minutes from my house.

I hope this movie doesn't get more lost with each generation. You know, being about a person who is not very popular today, and shot in black and white (though it was the first film to be colorized in the 80s), and having a less than "I wanna see that!" title. But everyone should see it. Due to the amazing amount of talent, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, as I said when we started, will keep you smiling, and perhaps even crying, until the very last frame. And for that, Mr. Cagney & company, I, along with mothers, fathers, sisters, and even brothers worldwide, thank you.