#98 ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’
Tap Shoes, Flag-Waving, and the Musical Biopic Where Patriotism Wears a Top Hat and Women Wait in the Wings
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is a red-white-and-blued fever dream of a musical biopic, a star-spangled love letter to America written in tap dance, ruffles, and manifest destiny. It’s the story of George M. Cohan—composer, performer, egomaniac—and the only man who could make “You’re a Grand Old Flag” sound like a mating call. James Cagney stars as Cohan in a performance so energetic it practically taps out Morse code for “Oscar me now” across the stage.
Cagney is, to be fair, phenomenal. He doesn’t just sing and dance—he explodes, grins, spins, and wisecracks his way through the entire 20th century. His Cohan is part showman, part salesman, and all male bravado, riding the wave of jingoistic musical theatre with the breathless arrogance of a man who never doubted for a moment that the spotlight belonged to him.
But let’s not get swept away by the patriotic glitter. Yankee Doodle Dandy is a biopic that sanitizes as much as it celebrates. It erases nuance, brushes off politics with jazz hands, and equates national pride with artistic greatness—because apparently writing war songs is the highest form of civic duty. Cohan’s complicated politics? Vanished. His reputation for egotism? Rewritten as lovable pluck. And his collaborators? Reduced to scenery.
And of course, the women. Joan Leslie plays Mary, Cohan’s ever-loyal, ever-gracious wife—a character who, like all good cinematic spouses of the 1940s, supports his genius from the sidelines while wearing impeccable hats. She has no arc, no ambition, and no real emotional presence outside of reacting supportively to her husband’s career. Cohan’s mother (Rosemary DeCamp) is saintly. His sister? A duet partner. Women in Yankee Doodle Dandy are there to hug, smile, and disappear. They’re the emotional wallpaper in a room built for one man and his mirror.
Director Michael Curtiz does his best to keep things moving at the pace of a vaudeville quick-change, and the musical numbers are glossy, punchy, and relentlessly upbeat. But the film doesn’t interrogate patriotism—it performs it. Cohan’s gift is selling America to Americans, and Yankee Doodle Dandy takes that branding and runs with it, all the way to the White House, where the final scene has Cohan literally walking down the steps after receiving the Medal of Honor, humming “Over There,” like a founding father in tap shoes.
3.5 out of 5 flags with jazz hands
(One for Cagney’s footwork. One for the bombastic charm. One for Curtiz’s musical polish. Half a star for sheer historical camp. The missing stars? Left behind with every woman whose story was shoved offstage to make room for a man, a song, and a nation that still can’t dance without stepping on someone’s neck.)
