Yankee Doodle

My bride and I watched James Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy last night, the biopic of American entertainer George M. Cohan. 

I wept.

My boys would say, "So what, Dad?  You weep during every film.  You wept watching The Incredibles."  Well, yeah, that's true.  Truth be told, novels do it, too.

It's not just the good telling of a good story that yanks the tears from my ducts.  It's the character who sets aside his dreams for another.  It's the group that sacrifices all for others or for some ideal.  It's love, extraordinary, difficult, pained, strained, sacrificial love.

Yankee Doodle Dandy was a great film.  If for no other reason, it's a renter to see James Cagney dance with an energy and beauty I'd seen from Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singing in the Rain.  Typically, folks breaking spontaneously into dance seems hokey.  When folks do it with the flare that these gents do it, it's worth the price of admission.  Cagney's dancing bits come during Cohan's stage acts, so they blend in with the storyline.  Even if they didn't, they'd be worth including.  Wow.  Here's a brief scene near the end where he does spontaneously break into a bit of tap.  His feet testify to his joy.



I was set to sobbing, though, because "they don't make movies like that anymore."  Like what?  Patriotic movies about patriotic people.  Cohan wrote plays, skits, music, and musicals that testified to the beauty that was America.  "You're a Grand Old Flag."  Heard any soaring songs lately about our nation's banner?  Lots of laments about what it's become but few to make the heart soar and the pride to swell.

Bald, unashamed patriotism.  Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Here's another point.  Never once during any of the dance numbers did James Cagney grab his crotch.  Never once did he thrust his pelvis in mock intercourse.  He did write a song for Mary, the woman he so adored.  And when he proposed to her, he offered her, for the first time, a kiss of sweetness to seal the deal.  I only saw his tongue, though, when he spoke.  It was unnecessary for the director to convey the depth of love they felt for one another by showing them clenched in a Captain Kirk-dinner-eating kiss or disrobe into some knot of humanity achievable by Cirque de Soleil but not by any of us.  The film depicted their love through character development.  Through the eyes.  Through the dialogue.  Through the story (which is why Pixar continues to win the homerun derby).

Another point.  I saw depths of sorrow, depths of concern, depths of anger, depths of frustration, and not once did I hear anything that I couldn't type without symbols.  Not one blurp of profanity.  It wasn't needed.  My five- and seven- year olds could be in the room, and I didn't have to fear what they might hear or see.  They might not sit through the whole movie, but they could without my fearing what might be vomitted from the screen.

Can you name a movie, a movie targeted to adults, that kids could watch (if they wanted to) that wouldn't make your average parent blush?  Anyone?  Me, either.  In all honesty, it broke my heart a bit in Toy Story 3, a film targeted more toward children though a very mature (in the good sense) movie, when they included Barbie's admiration for Ken's ascot.  Over the kids' heads?  Some, not all.  Necessary to convey their attraction?  Nope.

There are thousands of movies of amazing quality (acting, cinematography, story, and sometimes song and dance) out there.  You'll not find them on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.  You'll not find them at the local cineplex.  You might find them in a small corner on a single shelf at your local movie rental store titled "classics" or buried as needles in haystacks among the fields upon fields of other films.  You might stumble upon a couple at your local Redbox.  You will find them en masse at Netflix if you are willing to pay the fee.  The best place I have found such gems is on Turner Classic Movies, and it's almost worth the price of cable.  I have little to commend Mr. Turner's politics, but he has created a special thing with TCM.

As I went to bed last night, I pondered the mythical land that birthed the likes of George M. Cohan, a land reflected and honored in his artistry, and a land chest-deep in sacrificial nobility when the movie commemorating him was filmed (1942). 

What a great movie.  There are still films and stories out there that tell about this legendary place called America.  It just takes a little work to find them.