Except he's played by James Cagney, who I thought was a tough guy gangster but it turns out he's an actor, and rather versatile. He's of the vaudeville generation, like Cary Grant, and can sing and dance and do all kinds of things other than be tough. But also be tough. He's a renaissance man.
It was directed by Michael Curtiz who went on to direct Casablanca and Mildred Pierce and a few others (he directed 166 NBD).
I'm really glad I decided to try to watch more of these movies, because otherwise this is definitely one I wouldn't have seen. I would be interested in knowing why it was selected, though, in all honesty. I mean it's interesting and enjoyable but the songs seem to be more memorable than the movie, and they had already been written.
One thing about this movie that really has stuck with me, though, is the way the cultural context of its creation and release is reflected. This will probably seem to come out of left field, but it really reminded me of Wonder Woman (not the new blockbuster movie that I really really want to see and that is supposed to be awesome, but the TV show with Lynda Carter that came out in 1975).
Wonder Woman was released in the mid-1970s, and there were a couple of interesting things going on (you know, one or two). The Vietnam War had ended and the population of the United States was grappling with moral dilemmas that never plagued the ends of previous wars, in addition to facing the reality that we may have actually "lost" a war (although I'm not sure there are ever any "winners" in war).
The "New Left" social movements of the 60s and 70s (notably the Women's Liberation, Civil Rights, and Lesbian and Gay movements) were escalating and causing additional moral dilemmas in the general population, and raising questions about equality and freedom and basic human rights that lawmakers in the United States had been avoiding for centuries.
Speaking of centuries, the bicentennial of the United States was approaching as well.
So when I watch Wonder Woman (and this is why I used to show it in my Culture and Gender courses), I don't just see the dramatization of a comic book. I see a celebration of United States world power set at the end of WW2, a war where the US definitely had the moral high ground and came out victorious. I see a celebration of a woman who is straight, white, and traditionally feminine and beautiful, and oh yeah, an Amazon - not a woman demanding equal pay for equal work or freedom of reproductive choice (for example). And although she is somewhat anti-war, she goes to fight for the side of right and justice, which by the way is the American side. I see a celebration of a simpler time, when US (hegemonic) culture wasn't challenged by things like space travel and inequality. A time when people knew their place, even Amazons.
This probably sounds really random if you have not seen Yankee Doodle Dandy, but let me explain - it come out in 1942, at which time US gen-pop didn't know how WW2 was going to turn out. There was fear and anxiety, understandably, since this was the second World War in 30 years, and the first war was called "The Great War" because it was supposed to be the war to end all wars.
So Yankee Doodle Dandy was a movie about someone who wasn't a soldier but who devoted all his talents to service to country. At one point he tries to enlist but is encouraged to continue inspiring the country with his songs and performances. He eventually wrote a few songs that were used in boosting morale during WWI, which is why FDR gives him the Congressional Gold Medal. I mean, yes he put on minstrel shows that failed miserably and yes he sided against actors in the 1919 strike which caused him to take a long break from the theatre, but these events were glossed over in the film in favor of producing a hyper-patriotic film that might help do for the United States in 1942 what George Cohan's music did for the United States during WW1.
Overall I enjoyed the movie quite a bit but am glad I have this healthy sense of skepticism that caused me to research what "really" happened in Cohan's life and in the context of the movie release.
In another unrelated point, people don't write music like they did - songs that are sung and then passed on and then sung by people at bars and parties and on the battlefield. It's kind of sad, although we do have quite a few leftover from that time... But I don't think it even "works" the same way. I guess it's because we have so many different sources of new music, and listen to our music in our earphones rather than having to go out in public. That's another thing that interests me about culture - how technological developments (like home radios, then boomboxes, then walkmen, then mp3 players, etc) change the ways we interact with cultural objects, which in turn influences the types of cultural objects that are produced.
But I think I've said enough about this movie. Up next is Do the Right Thing. I'm not making very much progress but I'm having a good time. :-)
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