Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

The life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer, and singer George M. Cohan.

Director:

Michael Curtiz

Writers:

Robert Buckner (screen play), Edmund Joseph (screen play)

Stars:

James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston

Won 3 Oscars. Another 3 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
James Cagney	...	George M. Cohan
Joan Leslie	...	Mary
Walter Huston	...	Jerry Cohan
Richard Whorf	...	Sam Harris
Irene Manning	...	Fay Templeton
George Tobias	...	Dietz
Rosemary DeCamp	...	Nellie Cohan
Jeanne Cagney	...	Josie Cohan
Frances Langford	...	Singer - Nora
George Barbier	...	Erlanger
S.Z. Sakall	...	Schwab
Walter Catlett	...	Theatre Manager
Douglas Croft	...	George M. Cohan - As a Boy of 13
Eddie Foy Jr.	...	Eddie Foy
Minor Watson	...	Albee

Storyline

A musical portrait of composer/singer/dancer George M. Cohan. From his early days as a child-star in his family's vaudeville show up to the time of his comeback at which he received a medal from the president for his special contributions to the US, this is the life- story of George M. Cohan, who produced, directed, wrote and starred in his own musical shows for which he composed his famous songs.

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Plot Keywords:

singing | dancing | congressional gold medal | father son relationship | family act | 

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Taglines:

Get ready to Laugh, to Sing, to Shout! ...For here comes Uncle Sam's Star Spangled Yankee Doodle Dandy!

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | Musical

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 June 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

Triunfo supremo

Filming Locations:

New York Street, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$11,800,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

George Barbier (Erlanger) appeared with the actual George M. Cohan in The Phantom President (1932), Cohan's only talking picture, Paramount's "The Phantom President" (1932).

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Goofs

Cohan encounters a group of teen-agers, who sing "Jeepers Creepers," before Cohan decides to return to the stage in "I'd Rather Be Right." "Jeepers Creepers" was published and became popular in 1938, a year following "I'd Rather Be Right."

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Quotes

[first lines]
Critic #1: I call it a hit. What'll your review say?
Critic #2: I like it too, so I guess I'll pan it.

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Connections

Referenced in What's My Line?: James Cagney (1960)

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Soundtracks

Little Johnny Jones
(1942) (uncredited)
Music by M.K. Jerome
Lyrics by Jack Scholl
Sung by the chorus as part of the "Little Johnny Jones" sequence

User Reviews

Red White and Blue, Cagney for You

James Cagney won his only Oscar for his recreation of George M. Cohgan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Already terminally ill, Cohan lived long enough to see the film and no doubt he would have approved of it because it sure is how he would like to have been remembered.

In 1942 when Yankee Doodle Dandy premiered there was a whole generations of people left alive who saw George M. Cohan perform. Watching the film today Cohan is like a figure from antiquity. But Warner Brothers was lucky to have James Cagney with the studio who's dancing style closely paralleled Cohan's. If it is ever run on Turner Classic Movies, make sure you see George M. Cohan's sound film The Phantom President. You will be astonished to see how closely Cagney captured his style. In the same way that Philip Seymour Hoffman captured Truman Capote and Joaquin Phoenix became Johnny Cash.

Cohan's contemporaries are also like names from antiquity. But a century ago when Cohan was just hitting the big time performers like Fay Templeton, Nora Bayes, and Eddie Foy were very big stars and in 1942 plenty of people saw them also. I wish we had some film of them to see how Irene Manning, Frances Langford, and Eddie Foy, Jr. did in their recreations. I'm sure Foy, Jr. did a smashing job with his Dad.

The background stuff is true enough. Cohan was born to a pair of vaudeville performers Jerry and Nellie Cohan played here by Walter Huston and Rosemary DeCamp. Later on a sister was added to the Cohan family and here Josie Cohan is played by Jeanne Cagney. They did do all the towns, big and small, in America. Cagney meets wife Joan Leslie at Shea's Theater in Buffalo, New York and Shea's survives to this day. And his first real success was Little Johnny Jones which score included American classics, Yankee Doodle Dandy and Give My Regards to Broadway.

What's left out is the fact Cohan had two wives. His second wife survived him and died in the early Seventies. As his songs became popular in patriotic/rightwing circles, Cohan's personal politics reflected that. He fought hard and lost in the battle for Actors Equity. Cohan thought a union of players was tantamount to Communism. But such was his standing among performers that Cohan was granted the unique privilege of being allowed to appear on stage without having to join Equity once the union was recognized as the bargaining agent for players.

Cohan is shown in Yankee Doodle Dandy as gracefully having retired when other trends in popular music took over. Far from it, he was a very bitter man and when he did that final comeback in I'd Rather Be Right he fought with Kaufman and Hart over the book and Rodgers and Hart over the songs.

But Yankee Doodle Dandy presents the public musical face of George M. Cohan and does it very well. To this day, some forty years after first seeing Yankee Doodle Dandy on television, I love the recreations of Yankee Doodle Dandy, Give My Regards to Broadway, and You're a Grand Old Flag as they were first seen on stage. Plus some of the snatches of the lesser known Cohan songs as performed by the players portraying the Cohan family and others.

When all is said and done, George M. Cohan was a great force of nature in the American musical theater. And we thank his father, mother, and sister, and George M. himself for what he left us.