Review of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) by Brandon T — 13 Dec 2008

Though too corny and rose-tinted to interest me in subsequent viewings, it still has more than enough heart to make me glad I have seen it. Because I'd heard nothing but glowing things about it, I was a little disappointed that it was pretty much what I expected.

This is the patriorism for a country and adoration for a man that is more a motherly perspective, seeing only innocuous faults, than it is a realistic one. One certainly doesn't ask for either man or country to be drug through the mud, as some might like, but this goes to the other extreme and, while clearly not apologetic for it (nor am I asking it to be), it unavoidably pays a price.

The musical numbers are the equivalent of grabbing a flag and simply waving it about as energetically as you can. While commendable it lacks enough entertainment to commandeer 2 hours. Only after an hour and 40 minutes into the film does it start giving us something truly worthwhile, when patriotism becomes more for Cohan than the easy, profitable task of chucking up a bunch of flags and rousing songs on stage. The film now gives us a clear sense of a man chucking his dreams but still using his best gifts for a supremely noble cause, something immeasurably bigger than himself. He can't be a Schindler, but he can do what he can as George M. Cohan, and he does it with as much enthusiasm, and -- one senses -- with a more profound and fuller sense of patriotism than he might have ever otherwise had.

That the song "Over There" is probably one of the great American anthems gives the act the punch that puts it close to perfection. Though the lyrics may seem ironic in their promise in light of the past few years, they also do not lose that heartening spirit they were meant to carry when they were first penned.

The sequence lasts barely five minutes, but gives meaning to the preceding hundred and elevates the final ten providing the necessary perspective to make the point of his visit to the President a justified honor rather than a ridiculous Hollywood denouement.

No doubt some will still see it as the latter, but as one who loves his country being well aware of the numerous reasons not to, it makes me appreciate Cohan's contribution and Curtiz's tribute to him in this film.