Repeat after me: Yankee Doodle Dandy is NOT one of the Top 100 films of all time. Submitted for your consideration:
1. Filled with highly patriotic songs, this movie had the incredibly good fortune to hit the theaters shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
2. Despite the Pearl Harbor timing, the National Critics Review that year did not even rate Yankee Doodle Dandy in its Ten Best Movies of 1942. It was never mentioned by critics as one of the best movies of the year, until it received an Oscar Nomination for Best Picture.
3. 1942 has been ranked by a reviewer as the 71st best year, out of 82 years, for quality films. Even so, Yankee Doodle did not win the Best Picture Oscar, losing to Mrs. Miniver.
4. Yes, it has a string of great songs. Unfortunately, most of them are sung by James Cagney who is probably the worst lead singer in any major musical movie ever. EVER!! Cagney is a worse singer than Rex Harrison, he is even worse than Pierce Brosnan. Cagney is literally unable to sustain a note.Any note! How much better would those great songs have been if they had been performed by someone who could sing? Who could sustain a note?
5. Yes, Cagney surprised everyone by showing a real ability to dance. But does that surprise make this a great movie? Or is it merely akin to discovering, after all these years, that Meryl Streep can sing - as in Mamma Mia ? or that Yoda can fight - in Star Wars 5?
6. We hear a song called "A Girl Named Mary" sung 4 or 5 times; it is important to the plot at one point and is repeatedly called a "great song" and "the best song ever written" by George M Cohan. However, no matter what the actors say, it is clearly a very ordinary song. Its just ridiculous -its jarring, its destroys the audience's suspension of disbelief, analogous to a movie scene in which Chris Farley or Danny Devito are hailed as one of the best looking hunks of all time.
7. Cagney is energetic and overbearingly cocky, but I did not find him likable.
8. The staging of many of the musical numbers was way below average. Repeatedly, there were too many dancers in too small of a space -no one could move. No competent stage director does that. And even if the women did move - you could hardly discern it in those butt-ugly dresses they wore in every number. This is world-class entertainment? I don't think so.
9. The acting? the dialog? A font of nuanced characterization? Of gradually realized humanity? Nope, indeed, every character is a one note stereotype.
10. Accuracy. in real life, George M. Cohan had two wives, neither was named Mary. In fact, virtually every aspect of the plot was made up by Hollywood.
11. Overly long.
12. There is a long re-enactment of a scene from the theatrical production of Yankee Doodle Dandy. In this theater scene, our hero, Yankee Doodle (Cagney), has lost the horse race! and is in disgrace because he is accused of throwing the race. As the closing curtain is poised to come down, a lawyer-ly actor with a brief case runs up to Yankee Doodle and says something like "I'm trying to get a document that will clear you of throwing the race. The document will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did not throw that race! I am getting on that boat and if I am then successful at obtaining the document,I'll signal you by setting off fireworks." Cagney, our Actor of the Year for 1942, nods dumbly without showing any apparent interest as to what this document could possibly be. (SPOILER ALERT) Of course, a few minutes later, fireworks go off and the show has a happy ending.
So what exactly could those documents have been? What kind of content could a document possibly have so as to prove that Yankee Doodle did not throw a race? It defies comprehension. And who was this guy? And where did he have the fireworks hidden -in his pants? And what kind of moron sets off fireworks on a boat? (think fire safety.) Exactly how dumb, how completely stupid, does a movie need to be before you turn off the TV?
Repeat after me: Yankee Doodle Dandy is NOT one of the TOP 100 Movies of All Time.
1. Filled with highly patriotic songs, this movie had the incredibly good fortune to hit the theaters shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
2. Despite the Pearl Harbor timing, the National Critics Review that year did not even rate Yankee Doodle Dandy in its Ten Best Movies of 1942. It was never mentioned by critics as one of the best movies of the year, until it received an Oscar Nomination for Best Picture.
3. 1942 has been ranked by a reviewer as the 71st best year, out of 82 years, for quality films. Even so, Yankee Doodle did not win the Best Picture Oscar, losing to Mrs. Miniver.
4. Yes, it has a string of great songs. Unfortunately, most of them are sung by James Cagney who is probably the worst lead singer in any major musical movie ever. EVER!! Cagney is a worse singer than Rex Harrison, he is even worse than Pierce Brosnan. Cagney is literally unable to sustain a note.Any note! How much better would those great songs have been if they had been performed by someone who could sing? Who could sustain a note?
5. Yes, Cagney surprised everyone by showing a real ability to dance. But does that surprise make this a great movie? Or is it merely akin to discovering, after all these years, that Meryl Streep can sing - as in Mamma Mia ? or that Yoda can fight - in Star Wars 5?
6. We hear a song called "A Girl Named Mary" sung 4 or 5 times; it is important to the plot at one point and is repeatedly called a "great song" and "the best song ever written" by George M Cohan. However, no matter what the actors say, it is clearly a very ordinary song. Its just ridiculous -its jarring, its destroys the audience's suspension of disbelief, analogous to a movie scene in which Chris Farley or Danny Devito are hailed as one of the best looking hunks of all time.
7. Cagney is energetic and overbearingly cocky, but I did not find him likable.
8. The staging of many of the musical numbers was way below average. Repeatedly, there were too many dancers in too small of a space -no one could move. No competent stage director does that. And even if the women did move - you could hardly discern it in those butt-ugly dresses they wore in every number. This is world-class entertainment? I don't think so.
9. The acting? the dialog? A font of nuanced characterization? Of gradually realized humanity? Nope, indeed, every character is a one note stereotype.
10. Accuracy. in real life, George M. Cohan had two wives, neither was named Mary. In fact, virtually every aspect of the plot was made up by Hollywood.
11. Overly long.
12. There is a long re-enactment of a scene from the theatrical production of Yankee Doodle Dandy. In this theater scene, our hero, Yankee Doodle (Cagney), has lost the horse race! and is in disgrace because he is accused of throwing the race. As the closing curtain is poised to come down, a lawyer-ly actor with a brief case runs up to Yankee Doodle and says something like "I'm trying to get a document that will clear you of throwing the race. The document will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did not throw that race! I am getting on that boat and if I am then successful at obtaining the document,I'll signal you by setting off fireworks." Cagney, our Actor of the Year for 1942, nods dumbly without showing any apparent interest as to what this document could possibly be. (SPOILER ALERT) Of course, a few minutes later, fireworks go off and the show has a happy ending.
So what exactly could those documents have been? What kind of content could a document possibly have so as to prove that Yankee Doodle did not throw a race? It defies comprehension. And who was this guy? And where did he have the fireworks hidden -in his pants? And what kind of moron sets off fireworks on a boat? (think fire safety.) Exactly how dumb, how completely stupid, does a movie need to be before you turn off the TV?
Repeat after me: Yankee Doodle Dandy is NOT one of the TOP 100 Movies of All Time.