Review: Yankee Doodle Dandy

First of all how incredible was the Golden Globes? I stayed up to watch it as its on very late at night for the UK viewers, but I loved it. Oh and we've had a makeover on Peppermint Friday, what do you think it took me on and off all week, but I'm finally happy with it for now it might change it might not, but at the moment I love it!

Anyway back to the post this week is such a long time coming as I love these men so so much.  Particularly Jimmy, he is amazing but more on the individuals in Wednesday's post. 

Yankee Doodle Dandy is musical biopic of George M Cohan he was a vaudevillian superstar, the best way I can describe him is the old version of Neil Patrick Harris. He was amazing basically he wrote his own songs, he was very business oriented this film is about his family act called 'The Four Cohans' and his career. 

James Cagney (or I call him Jimmy) plays the George and he is brilliant, Jimmy mainly known for being this tough gangster guy but in this film he is a tap dancing, singing charismatic gentlemen. And Jimmy has always had charisma in all his roles regardless of the agenda and typecast of them. Thats one of the reasons as to why I love him so much, I mean Jimmy used to dance as a child, but he is so good everyone needs to see this side of Jimmy.

The songs are so catchy and brilliantly sung, I adore 'Harrigan', 'You're a Grand Old Flag', and of course 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' the film also has a lot of serious bits where George's sister Mary decides she wants to get married and stop performing, and so does their father. At that point in the film its really hard as it just shows that it was George who was the driving force of it all, and had the business behind it all so for him it was a slap in the face of 'oh its all me I have noone to give encouragement too' and in some ways it could be like 'oh yay I'm on my own, and I can bigger and have much more freedom'. As it was George writing all the songs for the shows they were all in. 

I think its an underrated musical as it has very catchy songs, the acting is brilliant and the story touches on some key issues that can be related to any walk of life. Although there are better musicals that have done much better and I can understand why its not done on stage or in schools as the music is yes good but its also seen as abit old fashioned.

Not to say its awful because 'an oldie can be a goldie' which segways perfectly onto the next point of the film which I'm going to talk about and thats being seen as a 'has been' during the end of George's career he is in his garden and they are teenagers nearby and they're talking about music and George mentions he did music all long time ago. The teenagers have no idea who he is and George says well maybe your parents talked about me, and the teenagers still don't know. Its just about being relevant and the worry that not even the people who listen and watch him remember who he is. 

But I adore this film and Jimmy's dancing, and more people should know who is he and love him. Because he is brilliant, charismatic, charming gentlemen he always has been and for those who only know Jimmy for his brilliant badass-ery watch this film, and still be blown away but in a different way.