Cohan and Cagney
Most of you have probably seen the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy” starring James Cagney as George M. Cohan. I watched it on TV many times as a child, and loved it.
A while back I read that Cagney’s stiff-legged dancing in that film was an imitation of Cohan’s idiosyncratic dance style, and I started to wonder whether there was any film of Cohan dancing or singing. He died in 1942, so there should be something of the sort.
Not much, as it turns out. But a bit.
First, here’s Cohan singing “Over There” in 1936, when he was 58 years old:
And here’s Cagney singing the same song in the movie. He only sings a small part of the song, but gives it the same high energy. The movie was released in June, 1942 (Cohan died in November of that year, but apparently saw the movie). That was well -into WWII, although “Over There” was a song from WWI. But you can see why it meant so much at the time.
The following is the only footage I could find of Cohan dancing (it’s Cagney singing in the background, though). It’s about a minute long:
This is Cagney doing much the same number in the film “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” They’re both playing FDR, by the way, wearing a top hat:
I think you can see how well Cagney captured Cohan’s style. There were quite a few similarities between them: both had backgrounds in vaudeville, both were of Irish ethnicity (Cagney mostly, anyway), and both were relatively short (5’6″ for Cohan and 5’4″ for Cagney).
You can feel the playfulness and energy practically blast off the screen in both versions. Those were different times, weren’t they?
Cagney had him down pat. I think one of the best movie scenes ever is when Cagney is dancing down the stairs. People forget that he was a great Hoofer.
SHIREHOME:
I read that he improvised that dance on the stairs. Fabulous.
Cagney was quite the man.
James Cagney was a political changer. He supported FDR, but in later years supported Reagan.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2015/07/happy-fourth-of-july/
@ Gringo > I love your LI link to a post Neo made!
She has mentioned the Cagney film a couple of times here, and I never get tired of watching him dance.
Note how early he showed evidences of his two-sided film career, per his Wiki page.
I didn’t know how closely he and Reagan were connected, socially and politically.
Makes a good counterpoint to Neo’s earlier post today: They were just not interested in being card-carrying communists.
He got that right.
Yes, different times.
I checked, and Cagney could actually play the piano and guitar. He said he was a terrible player, but that would be relative to who?
Charles R Harris
I checked, and Cagney could actually play the piano and guitar. He said he was a terrible player, but that would be relative to who?
Sounds like his vaudeville training—learned to do a bit of everything in vaudeville.
Thanks, neo.
I have no idea how great a performer Cohan was.
Cagney was FANTASTIC in just about everything he did.
Thanks, neo.
I know nothing of Cohan’s performances.
Cagney was FANTASTIC in everything he did.
— gringo
That was true of a lot of Reagan Democrats. But there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about them that has hampered the GOP ever since: their support for Reagan did not mean they were necessarily entirely rejecting FDR.
That confusion has tripped up the GOP ever since Reagan left office.