YANKEE DOODLE DANDY


1942

Michael Curtiz (director)

Musical vs. bio with music

Academy Awards

Best Actor Best music scoring Supporting actor Walter Houston (Jerry Cohan) Musicals require music outside of a performance space, That is to say music occirs where it would not in the real world. In dramas or comedies with music, the music occurs in performance spaces (such as theaters, night clubs, concert halls etc.). This is a bio-pic with music. Of course the definition can be blurred in many cases where some music is in performance space and some is not.

Problems of accuracy - In what ways are biographical films acccurate or innacurate? Is there a difference between factual accuracy and "spin"?

Factual innaccuracy can be known by consulting other sources. Spin may be observed directly in the film.

Question of acting vs. impersonation

Similarities between Cohan and Cagney

Both have family members in the same theater business

Cohan's whole family was the act.

Both James cagney's sister Jeanne and his brother William (who looks a great deal like James)

Jeanne Cagney (Cagney’s sister) plays Cohan’s sister in film. She also appears with her brother James in The Time of Your Life and Man with a Thousand Faces.

William appears in a few films and was a producer of several films and an associate producer of this film

 Cagney like Cohan was originally a vaudevillian – dancer etc,

Both Cagney and Cohan were Irish Americans

Cagney and Cohan something alike in looks, sound and movement.

George M. Cohan born in Rhode Island on July 3 1878 (always claimed it was July 4th). He died the year the film was released (1942)

Cohan has remarkable control over the script and demanded that the film not depict either of his two wives. The "film" wife, Mary (which is not the real name of either of his wives, (although it was the middle name of his wife Agnes) is something of a composite and give the name to match the one in the song, which in fact was not written for her.

Samuel Goldwyn turned it down after offering to Fred Astaire who was Cohan's choice to play himself.

Jack Warner finally produced the film (had brief stint in Vaudeville).

Michael Curtiz (Hungarian did Hungarian and German films first) is best known perhaps for Sea Wolf, Casablanca, and Mildred Pierce

James Wong Howe is the cinematographer

Film was being shot when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Most of Cohan's patriotic songs are written about WWI. The film was released just after the start of WWII. (Filming actually started Dec. 3rd) although it wwas clear that war was imminent from the events going on in Europe since 1930's.

Watch for staging of numbers and information about the period in which the film takes place - note for example the social structure of the theatrical world, and the historical details like gas lit stages.

AFTER THE FILM

Interesting shift in politics. The film deals with patriotism, pro-war sentiment, family values (and to a lesser degree religion) as Left wing (Democratic), not Right wing (Republican) values.

The film is known for its patriotism, something which the critics tend to frown upon (notice the dig at critics in opening sequence and the president's comment about Irish Americans wearing their patriotism on their sleeves)

Speaking of Irish Americans, note also the "black face number" which now politically incorrect is indicative of "ethnic" humor and ethnic acts of the period. Notice the mention of Harry Lauder the Scottish comedian and the statement "Most Americans have never seen a Scotchman"!

Curtiz was an imiigrant and like many immigrants of his day was passionately devoted to America and patriotism was very strong for many immigrant families. Even at the time of the Civil War many regiments had distinctly ethnic characteristics.

Acting vs. Mimicing

Mannerism, dancing and performance. In acting no - did not want to be a mimic, Most people don’t know Cohan now so similarities are less What is the function of structuring the film as a Flashback? It allows for a nostalgic look at past America and allows it to wind up in 1942 with WWII underway, thus linking the two wars as well as the patriotism involved there.