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Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
🕑 Added 2024-09-20 16:00:13 +0000 UTC#98 on the AFI list! I had no idea what this was about going into it and I was pleasantly surprised! Glad to keep trucking my way down this list!!! Left everything in the outro!!!
I can't wait to watch more James Cagney in other films! What a triple threat!!!!
Please note:
Just wanted to give you a heads-up that this movie has a scene that involves blackface, which is offensive and inappropriate. The film was made in a time when these kinds of portrayals were unfortunately more common, but it's important to recognize that they are harmful.
Comments
Amalia Wolf
TotAlly can’t stop smiling watching him!
James Rogers
I realize this is a typically fanciful Hollywood bio-pic but I don't really mind. George M. Cohan was responsible for so many iconic songs in his lifetime that he deserves to be remembered. Cagney gives a performance that is so mesmerizingly joyful that I can't stop smiling while I'm watching. A perfect end to a perfect slate of films.
Amalia Wolf
Totally JM I don’t remember talking a lot about the technical aspects but IT WAS NOTICED and was so incredible !!! It was a great way to end the week for SURE 🥲
Amalia Wolf
This movie was such a PLEASANT SURPRISE!!!!! I’m so excited to see JC in more
MikeLL
What a fantastic reaction! This is one of my favorite films, one of my favorite James Cagney films. Usually watch it every 4th of July, this movie or another musical, 1776. That this musical biography of George M. Cohan is not very accurate and a whole lot was made up for the film is not important to me. It is a patriotic, magnificent, and entertaining film. Ames is right. Cagney is electric. Electric and mesmerizing. There is something about his eyes, they are never still and always roving, he is always reacting by looking at the other actors. There is no one like Cagney for holding your attention in a scene. Others here have mentioned some of my favorite Cagney movies, Angels with Dirty Faces is a marvel with Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien and Ann Sheridan. The Strawberry Blonde and City for Conquest. Also The Roaring Twenties is another great gangster movie with Cagney and Bogart. It is amazing that he received his Oscar for Yankee Doodle Dandy, since he made his reputation as a gangster and tough guy in very dramatic movies. I grew up watching these wonderful Warner Brothers movies on TV after school and on the weekends. I love the old Warner acting stock company. Joan Leslie and George Tobias were featured in this one.
MikeLL
Oh, he didn't say "you dirty rat" in a film? Not exactly, but the origin of that line is here, from the movie Taxi (1932) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCej7-kJJP8
VivendoBem
There's so much to say about this movie, but really, it’s just schmaltz at it’s very best! Director Michael Curtiz was such an interesting artist who made all time great movies in several genres (Casablanca, Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces, Mildred Pierce, Life With Father, White Christmas and a million others). Directors of his time were just assigned several pictures a year to make in what was akin to a assembly line work. But Curtiz, a difficult man notorious for his iron willed work ethic, was ironically one of the most humanistic storytellers of his time, always approaching each of his movies from the characters out, yet always doing so with interesting and even dazzling visual flourishes. Much of that in YDD is a credit to legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe. Younger people might not understand this now, but Jimmy Cagney was such a huge and beloved star over so long a period that most every kid, from the 1930s until the early '80s could and would do a (bad) Cagney impression—usually saying, “You dirty rat”, something Cagney never actually said in any movie. His stardom is kinda strange on its face as Cagney wasn’t tall, handsome or even, despite his hoofer origins, that great a dancer, and sorta talked musically more than sang, but there was just something about him that is all in one adorable, winning and absolutely magnetic! Everyone just loves the guy the second he comes on screen. And this movie needed all of the talent described above (not to mention the great Walter Huston as George’s dad) to keep such a treacly, cornball biopic (of a miserable jerk, irl) from being an unctuous mess, but they managed to make an engaging classic that still works more than 80 years later!
JM63
What a way to end the week!! Perfect reaction, loved this. Very touching story (with a surprisingly sophisticated structure). As you mentioned, the rapid evolution of the movies was amazing. This came out just 15 years after the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer. (And studios had to spend a couple of years working out the kinks of recording sound.) Also, incredible direction & cinematography from Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and James Wong Howe! This film looks absolutely stunning -- many beautiful deep focus shots and great layered compositions.
Amalia Wolf
Not sure, we can check the spreadsheet LOL it’s at the bottom Tab on the WOW spreadsheet
Reggie
Orson Welles said in an interview that he considered James Cagney to be the greatest actor to ever step in front of a camera. Cagney was particularly well known for playing gangsters. His performance in the final scene of "Angels with Dirty Faces" is one of the finest I've ever seen.
Pickupthepieces76
How many Afi movies have you seen now?
Amalia Wolf
Im so interests to see him in other roles!!!
Toc
Checking it out now!!
Henry Graham
Cagney was unbelievably talented. He spent some years trying to get away from the tough guy image that he had established in the 1930s, and so Yankee Doodle Dandy was an important film for him. He's so charismatic and sharp in everything he does, and I love watching him. Just a few months ago I discovered a film called City for Conquest which I had never heard of and was deeply moved by. A wonderful actor.
