#100: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Starring: James Cagney
Director: Michael Curtiz
IMDB

Emily says:
I had no idea what I was getting into when we started watching this one. A period piece for sure, it is chock full of World War II era patriotism. The story, though, is compelling, and as we watched I found myself enjoying James Cagney's George Cohan.

There were so many songs in this one that I'd heard but had no idea that they were from the movie, and I didn't realize until afterwards that the film is biographical - Cohan is based on a real songwriter and producer of Broadway shows.

This isn't one that I'd watch over and over again, but I enjoyed seeing it - and think that it was a good choice to show a period of American film history.

Paul says:
Considering how much I hate musicals, this really wasn't that bad. It's a matter of principle really. That being said, the musical numbers were pretty good, and the overarching narrative wasn't completely unenjoyable. The main character was likeable even though he was kinda an asshole. There was a little bit too much flag-wacing for my taste, but it's just an artifact of its time. Like I said, knowing that it was a musical from the 40s I fully expected to hate it. I didn't, I might even watch it again.

Rating: 6.5/10