Word: cohan
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Yankee Doodle Dandy (Warner) is possibly the most genial screen biography ever made. Few films have bestowed such loving care on any hero as this one does on beaming, buoyant, wry-mouthed George M. (for Michael) Cohan. The result is a nostalgic, accurate re-creation of a historic era of U.S. show business. Not that the picture is a strict reconstruction of the playwright-songwright-actor-producer-hoofer's life. But star-spangled George M. Cohan, now 63, ailing, and confined to his upstate New York farm, was the kind of entertainer who really liked to entertain people...
...neat device, Showman Cohan (James Cagney) tells his life story to Franklin Roosevelt (Captain Jack Young) in the White House, where he is summoned to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is the story of a cocky, puckish, talented Irish-American, who accepted the accident of his birth on July 4, 1878 as an implied command to wave the Stars & Stripes forever. Critics called the act corny, but audiences recognized it for what it was: a born showman expressing a sincere emotion...
Yankee Doodle tries hard to squeeze 50 years of Cohan Americana into two hours and six minutes of celluloid. It succeeds best with the early years-the tough, tender, Irish clannishness of The Four Cohans (Father Walter Huston, Mother Rosemary DeCamp, Daughter Jeanne Cagney,† Son Jimmy) and their variety act; Songwriter Cohan's accidental partnership with Sam H. Harris (Richard Whorf), his ambiguous first meeting with his future wife (Joan Leslie), who came backstage while young Cohan was playing his mother's father in Buffalo, N.Y. "I'm 18," she confided...
Master Rooney, Metro's No. 1 asset, now 21 and draftable, is given enough rope to hang himself. He does three so-called impersonations. His Harry Lauder and George M. Cohan are scarcely distinguishable; his conception of Carmen Miranda is painful. Apparently there is nothing he cannot do, except behave himself...
Although the plot is a bit congested, and tries over-zealously to be socially significant, They Can't Get You Down is full of sprightly tunes, includes some dazzling dance routines. The title song, a combination Dale Carnegie-George M. Cohan inspirational piece addressed to "the little guy," has the swing of a fine marching song. But the hit of the show is a ballad called That Mittel-Europa of Mine, sung by highborn refugees. Sample lyrics...