James Cagney Stars in a Grand Entertainment About a Grand Entertainer
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL CURTIZ/1942
When a friend once told me that her son’s birthday was coming up on July 4, I replied with the first thought that popped into my head:
“Wow! Just like George M. Cohan.”
The puzzled look on my friend’s face indicated she didn’t understand my obscure cultural reference. She said she had no idea to whom I was referring, and I feigned shock.
“Oh, come on! George M. Cohan,” I said, as if repeating the Broadway legend’s name would somehow implant memories in my friend’s brain that were previously nonexistent. “Didn’t you see the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy?”
The film title was slightly more familiar to my friend; she had at least heard of it. But even this wasn’t helping much as she didn’t know what the movie was about.
I jokingly chided my friend for not having a better grasp of popular aspects of bygone eras (she previously confessed that she had never heard of the Rodgers & Hammerstein theatrical masterpiece Oklahoma!). But it’s easy to understand why younger generations of Americans aren’t as knowledgeable of such social topics from decades long passed.
Many of us now live in information — and entertainment — silos. We have numerous ways to occupy our time, all by ourselves.
When I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, we didn’t have internet or even cable television. So our entertainment choices were limited. This meant that most of us were exposed to the same films and music even if they originated many years before.
Yankee Doodle Dandy was an Independence Day staple during this era; at least one TV station broadcast it every year. I can’t recall how many times I watched it while growing up, and I don’t know anyone of my age or older who hadn’t seen it.
What made it so popular was the fact that it was so good. Some of the songs it featured were written more than 60 years before I first saw the movie, but they really resonated with me and virtually everyone else.
Yankee Doodle Dandy is unapologetically jingoistic. That’s because Cohan, the focus of the story, was unapologetically jingoistic.
Coming from an Irish Catholic family, this musical genius personified the patriotic American. And in so doing, he gave us some of our nation’s most memorable patriotic songs.
Released in 1942 by Warner Brothers, the film version of Cohan’s life appealed to Americans just as the country had entered the latest global conflict. James Cagney starred in the lead, and his performance was brilliant.
Cagney had made his name in Hollywood over the previous decade as a tough guy in a series of gangster movies. These included The Public Enemy (1931), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939).
The Public Enemy features one of cinema’s most renowned scenes. During breakfast, Cagney’s character angrily shoves half a grapefruit into the face of his girlfriend (played by Mae Clarke). Anyone who would do that had to be ruthless, right?
While they earned him fame, Cagney believed these roles limited his career options by typecasting him as a mobster. Portraying Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss.
The project also allowed Cagney to shed another myth staining his reputation. He was known for supporting various progressive causes, leaving some to question his loyalty to the United States. Yankee Doodle Dandy would erase any doubts about his love of country.
The film follows Cohan’s life as a child who joined the family business of show business. He, his parents and sister formed The Four Cohans, traveling the vaudeville circuit across the country. They performed in the late 19th century.
Cohan wrote classic patriotic songs such as “Over There” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” He also composed some of the most well-known show tunes including “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Mary is a Grand Old Name” and “The Yankee Doodle Boy.” Writing several dozen musicals, he came to be known as “the man who owned Broadway.”
Taking on the role of Cohan let Cagney showcase his talents as a song-and-dance man. His performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor the following year.
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a tribute to American exceptionalism. It doesn’t spend a single moment contemplating our nation’s many flaws. It’s a work of pro-American propaganda, plain and simple.
There’s much to criticize about the “My country, right or wrong” mentality. Far too many Americans have been guilty of looking the other way when our country has acted maliciously. We all lose when powerful forces are allowed to destroy at will.
When Yankee Doodle Dandy debuted, our nation’s sins were all too apparent. Adolf Hitler was inspired by our appalling treatment of Black Americans in how he handled Jewish people throughout Europe. The fact that one scene in the movie features The Four Cohans dancing as minstrels in blackface shows that even in the early 1940s, Americans didn’t comprehend the depth of our discriminatory mindset.
It’s obvious we haven’t always lived up to our founding creed presented in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
But while we’ve often fallen short of such lofty aspirations, the fact that we have these ideas woven into our national consciousness is extraordinary. Our other founding document continues what the Declaration of Independence started: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, [ensure] domestic tranquility, provide for the common [defense], promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
We’ve created an environment where we can better ourselves as a nation, to continue forming “a more perfect union …” And we’ve progressed tremendously from where we were when we staked out our independence on that Fourth of July nearly 250 years ago.
Cohan felt blessed to live in a country established on these principles, and Cagney embodied this enthusiasm in his portrayal. In the spring of 1942 when Yankee Doodle Dandy came out, we needed to rally everyone around the notion of defeating the evil that was consuming other parts of the world. Winning World War II would require enormous sacrifices, and the film made a case for why this was a just cause.
We have many other cinematic options available to contemplate how far we need to go to achieve universal freedom and equality in our country. I encourage everyone to make time over this holiday weekend to find relevant projects in furthering these conversations.
But there are moments when we all simply want to enjoy being Americans. Yankee Doodle Dandy honors a man who entertained countless individuals and boosted our country’s morale when we needed it most. If you need something to make your heart swell with patriotic pride as we celebrate our nation’s birthday, this movie will do the trick.