Alright, going in I already have attitude about Yankee Doodle Dandy (Curtiz, 1942). So, last year I had the grand idea of
starting this blog and went in with, well…”good intentions” and started on the
1998 AFI 100s list and this film was #100. I watched it…it took what felt like a century with a solid 2
hour and 6 minute long runtime…and was quite ready to call it quits on the
whole operation. In Yankee Doodle Dandy you have the
immigrant story, the vaudeville story and the Broadway story all wrapped up in
a Patriotic bow. And with all
three well equipped with stereotypical undertones of the time, it lost me right
off the bat. Maybe there was a
little cloud following me around that day, I don’t know, but even conceding it
was just a thing of its time, I still found it to be an overhyped relic from a
“Good Ole Days” that only existed in the minds of the few and privileged of
that time. With tonight’s
re-watching I’m going in skeptical but, if possible, open to learning and
experiencing something new.
On second viewing to be honest it was better than the first,
perhaps because I was more prepared for the scenes I was previously shocked by
and because well, I was paying more attention this time. That said Yankee Doodle Dandy is capital “P” Propaganda. Released in 1942 post Pearl Harbor and
with America knee deep in three more years of hard combat in World War II, it
follows the story of real life famed stage performer and musician George M.
Cohan, who wrote and performed patriotic classics like “Over There”, “Grand Old
Flag” and “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy”.
Born on July 4th, 1878 (his
actual his birthday is July 3rd) to Irish immigrant, vaudevillian parents,
Jerry (Walter Huston) and Nellie (Rosemary DeCamp), George is immediately added
to their traveling act and shortly after is joined by his little sister Josie
(Jeanne Cagney) who rounds out the family show, making them the renowned Four Cohans. Over time George gets a big head about being on stage and
getting more attention than his more finely tuned father (a jealousy his father
admits to) which leads to him losing gigs for his family due to his difficult
behavior. Growing up, George
starts writing his own skits and songs and begins on a journey to be his own
man so his family can make a few bucks without him dragging them down. With the help of fellow performer Mary
(Joan Leslie), his love interest and groupie, he knocks on every theatre door
in New York and is met with little success until serendipity opts in bringing
him and struggling writer Samuel H. Harris (Richard Whorf) together on a deal
with a not so bright backer Schwab (S.Z. Sakall) who is eager to spend his
wife’s money if it means he can leer at showgirls. Through combining their scripts they come up with Little Johnny Jones where “I’m a Yankee
Doodle Dandy” is featured and loved by the masses. With this success George and Sam become partners and start
conning their way around New York for more shows, good actors and eventually
their own stage and long standing success. Then the world explodes into World War I and being the
patriot he is, George goes to enlist.
He’s promptly rejected due to his age, 40, and is instead encouraged to
keep supporting the country in his infamous way by writing songs and performing,
which leads to his crafting “Over There” a song my father still sings today. Shortly after, George’s father dies,
his mother and sister preceding him in off-screen deaths (eye roll), leading
him to change up his life by parting with Sam after 15 years of solid business
and setting out to travel the world as he and wife Mary always wanted. Not long after returning home he’s
bored and with a timely encounter with the new generation, with their “jive
talk” and not having a clue as to who he is, he figures its time for a come-back
and so he takes on the role of President Roosevelt in I’d Rather Be Right which brings us to the beginning or end
depending oh how you’re keeping track.
The whole film is told in a flashback as President Roosevelt has heard
of George’s performance and wants to speak with him in person. George goes, feeling that he’s in some
sort of trouble only to find out the President himself is a fan and wants to personally
give him the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service to the country by
writing “Grand Old Flag” and “Over There”. Feeling like a million bucks he humbly accepts the medal and
celebrates by marching with a troop of soldiers all singing “Over There”.
Them’s
basically the breaks of the film, and for what it is, the story of a man
striving to attain his dreams at any costs, it is effective and dare I say
inspiring. Yet, it’s the periphery
events surrounding his story that spoke more to me. For all the constant toting of America’s greatness, we are
ironically met with clashing ideals of America. In an early scene where George goes to the White House to
meet with FDR, he’s escorted to the Prez’s office by an African-American butler
who’s been working in the White House since Teddy Roosevelt’s administration
and remembers Teddy’s fondness for George’s work then singing “Grand Old Flag”
in the tub. After George says, “It
was a good old song in its day” the Butler is then given the line, “Yes sir, it
was and its just as good today as it ever was.” Highlighting its use as a sign
of pride for all Americans but it’s only a weak method of insinuating that
African-Americans and White Americans have had the same experience in this
America.
Yes, Black men enlisted and went
over seas to fight, my grandfather being one of them, but it was more of a sign
to prove that they too were invested in the safety of their country despite their
second-class citizenship. They’re
need to fight was a hope to be seen on equal footing, equally passionate about
their home to make life better for when they return, an attempt to find
solidarity with fellow Americans in a common goal and yet it wasn’t to be. Black soldiers were segregated from
White soldiers in barracks, made to be cooks in kitchens and were often the
first to be sent into battle before White troops. The just America Yankee
Doodle Dandy promotes is one that didn’t exist for some populations,
notably a population that is unfairly represented even in this film. Of course the only African-Americans
present in the film are butlers and maids or in the case of the George Washington Jr. performance, reverent
slaves or maybe sharecroppers, if you wanna be optimistic, praising Lincoln’s
Monument for their Freedom, one Baritone man in spotlight singing “Glory Glory
Hallelujah”, while the rest of the ensemble is dressed in rags, draped in
shadow and have their backs to the audience lifting their hands up to Lincoln
like he’s Jesus, a voice over of his “4 Score” speech read robotically. In a following scene where all the
stations of American life are put on display the Blacks are noticeably absent,
a clear and conscious division of an ideal American from the rest. For some viewers, this moment will
probably set the tone for the rest of the film, being an unapologetic
simplified, white washing of American history to get butts in seats, on planes
and in the fray. And after all
that’s what it is though it covers it up nicely by main plot being about the unrealistically
smooth life of an immigrant family trying to make it big in America.
I suppose it was easier using the
right kind of immigrant story, had this family been anything other than Irish,
there’d really be no story to tell due to the timely complexities of other
European groups. The Irish,
despite their well-known struggles when first arriving to America, have since been
canonized as the best example of a foreign culture assimilating into a host
country’s culture, and because of it are mythologized as the “best” immigrants
this country’s ever had, but I digress.
Filmmaking in 1940s America wasn’t really known for taking chances in
themes especially taking on social challenges like race, Hollywood was more
interested in keeping the money flowing and so it did by infamously recycling
scripts of films that popped at the Box Office saddling screenwriting
departments with the title of the “echo chamber”. So again, as a thing of its time, it isn’t abnormal in its
approach to people of varying backgrounds yet, it should elicit the question of
relevance in a society that now knows better.
On
the same vein, departing from the white male perspective we enter the role of
the white woman. As previously
mentioned, his mother and sister receive off-screen deaths in a throw away voice-over
to pretty much just set-up his father’s death in an emotional scene between the
two. Later, there is a line in the
FDR play where in complaining about the White House food, George as FDR says,
“If Mrs. R would stay at home I’d get a decent meal but, that’s off the
record.” Though it is “off the record” it was a chip that some folks carried
around at the time, believing that a first lady’s duties were mainly to make
her husband look good, without her own agenda, something Eleanor challenged and
made our country better for doing.
In regards to George’s relationship with his own wife Mary, who’s pretty
much there to cheer him on, and yes I know he employs her in probably every
production, there’s no life for her otherwise. Its never mentioned that she works on other projects or has
a hobby, writers and anything else other than looking after him, which got her
the role of wife in the first place.
In a, I guess sweet scene between the two, George has gone with Sam to
entice legendary stage performer Fay Templeton (Irene Manning) to perform in
their next play Forty-five Minutes to
Broadway when he is forced to give a song he wrote for Mary to perform
(side note: Mary doesn’t even have a last name in this thing before she meets
George) to Fay to seal the deal. He
returns to Mary sheepish but, not to worry cause Mary doesn’t, before he can
even get the words out to tell her, she’s doting on him, saying she hasn’t had
time to think of herself since she’s been so preoccupied with his career and
that since first seeing him she knew he needed looking after, this seals the
deal for him, and in using a line and not directly asking her to marry him, the
deal is sealed for her as well. He
goes on to tell her about the song but she don’t care, mocking women’s
intuition by saying she already knew about it because of the gifts he brought
her coming in. Really most the
scenes with women are just one long eye roll after the other, none having a
real life or identity of their own, save for Fay Templeton but we don’t see
much of her after she’s hitched up to the Cohan bandwagon. Honestly, its these nuisances that make
this film hard to watch at times because of the constant reminders of who this
film is really for and what its trying to accomplish, reminding women of their
place and keeping non-Irish others in theirs.
All that being said, this film’s
redeeming factors are found mostly in the exchanges, banter, dialogue and ad
libs between, well honestly, the male actors. For me this is where James Cagney’s George M. Cohan shines
the most. His lines are well
executed and his delivery is everything.
His scenes with Sam are really funny, along with negotiations with theatre
owners and a particular run-in with competitor Eddie Foy that still has me
cracking up and does incite an appreciation for the old Hollywood actors who
had a skill for timing and ad libs that actors today can only mimic, which
earns this film brownie points for being entertaining, a thing it definitely
set out to be.
So, for all my justifiable ranting and raving, is it still
relevant enough to remain on the list? Well…meh, yeah, in regards to it being
an American version of Triumph of the
Will (Riefenstahl, 1935) with more soft lighting, singing and dancing, yeah
it deserves a spot, and its #98 ranking feels appropriate. To watch Yankee Doodle Dandy through the lens of it being a record of a
complicated era helps in seeing it for what it is, entertainment of the age, and
a peak into the American consciousness, though filtered through the experience
of the privileged white male, as I’m sure are most of the films on this list. But, if you’re feeling really patriotic
and wanna get some “good old” songs stuck in your head check it out and see
what being an American really means to you.
Resources: Film History: An Introduction by David Bordwell
and Krisitn Thompson. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.
