Yankee Doodle Dandy

The film's most quoted moment was not in the script. Cagney's George M. Cohan is walking down a marble staircase at the White House when he abruptly starts tapping and dances all the way to the bottom. Cagney said he thought of it five minutes before the take and did it without consulting the director. Cohan was a vaudeville composer and one of the founding figures of Broadway. Over There and You're a Grand Old Flag are his. The film was made to lift morale after America entered the war, and Cohan died a few months after it opened. James Cagney had spent his career known for gangsters. His only Oscar came from playing this song-and-dance man. Michael Curtiz directed. Who it is for: viewers who want classic Hollywood musical craft, and proof of what Cagney's legs could actually do. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical biography. This is a wartime production, it never questions its own patriotism, and it leaves Cohan's darker corners closed.