YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
I always loved Warner Brothers gangster movies, especially when they starred Jimmy Cagney. But when I was a kid, I went out of my way to avoid one of Cagney’s biggest hits, the film that won him his only Oscar, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” It seemed strictly squaresville to my hippy-dippy baby boomer heart. Why would anyone want to watch a jingoistic flag-waving corn-dog of a movie like “Yankee Doodle Dandy?”
Well, one day I finally watched it, and as it turns out, “Yankee Doodle Dandy” rocks! It is wildly entertaining, a product of the Warner Brothers studio system at its peak, brought to star-spangled life by the same team of inspired craftsmen who made “Casablanca,” director Michael Curtiz, producer Hal Wallis, and screenwriters Julius and Philip Epstein. The screenwriting Epstein brothers worked uncredited on “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” but every account that I’ve read of its making says that they did a large portion of the script, and I believe it: like “Casablanca,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy” crackles with great dialogue, delivered with Keith-Albee-Orpheum Circuit precision by Cagney and the rest of the cast.
“Yankee Doodle Dandy” is the “true” story of George M. Cohen, a musical theater dynamo from the early part of the twentieth century who wrote, composed, produced, directed and starred in a parade of Broadway hits.
From what I’ve read, the George M. Cohen portrayed in this film is largely fictional. In real life, Cohen was a selfish prick who tried to crush the Actors Equity Union when his fellow performers went on strike. But who wants to see a movie about that guy? So instead the filmmakers invented a cocky yet lovable scrapper. In “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” Jimmy Cagney gives an incredibly accurate portrayal of a character that never really existed in the first place.
I am not embarrassed to say I love the songs. In the first decade of the twentieth century, this was the hippest pop music around, as long as you didn’t know anything about the blues and jazz and ragtime that was bubbling up beneath the surface of that era and would eventually revolutionize music and culture and everything else. Ironically, George M. Cohen’s music, which was justifiably celebrated for its patriotic spirit, would not go on to become what you would call quintessential American music. That honor would eventually go to the aforementioned blues and jazz and ragtime, and also Rock ‘n Roll, which because of its heavy blues influence is more indigenous to our soil and thus more authentically American than Cohen’s songs, which are the product of the quaint nineteenth century European musical styles that were going on “Over There.”
Still, George M. Cohen was a great talent and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” is one of the all time great backstage musicals. I don’t know if it’s as American as Apple Pie, but it’s as American as Vaudeville, and Vaudeville, I would argue, is so American it makes Apple Pie look Canadian.
SINGING IN THE RAIN and THE BAND WAGON
I am listing these two masterpieces together, not just because of what they have in common – both backstage musicals, both produced by the Arthur Freed unit at MGM, both written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, both constructed around pre-existing song catalogues: Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown in the case of “Singing In The Rain,” Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz for “The Band Wagon.” No, the reason I’m putting them together is because I can never decide which is my favorite. “Singing In The Rain” is one of the few musical comedies that actually has a lot of hilarious comedy in it. The same can be said for “The Band Wagon,” although is has a more melancholy tone, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. So which is better? Damn, I can’t decide!
There is not a weak song in either movie. In “Singing In The Rain,” Donald O’Connor achieved immortality when he performed “Make “Em Laugh,” and its over-the-top magnificence is such that nobody cares that the song itself is a blatant rip-off of Cole Porter’s “Be A Clown.” The rest of the songs are timeless and totally great, as are the songs in “The Band Wagon,” although maybe I like them a little bit more (but I can’t decide!).
The man who wrote the words to the songs in “The Band Wagon,” Howard Dietz, was a big executive muckymuck at MGM. In his spare time he wrote brilliant lyrics to Arthur Schwartz’s beautiful melodies for some classic Tin Pan Alley tunes, some of the best of which were used in “The Band Wagon.” But for several decades he never quit his day job: Head of Publicity at MGM.
One of Dietz’s most famous publicity campaigns at MGM happened when he came up with a slogan for “Adventure,” the film that marked Clark Gable’s return to movies after World War II. The picture featured Gable and Greer Garson, and Dietz came up with the memorable line, “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!” At MST3K, in one of the Gamera movies (Dear God, please don’t ask me which one!) one of the riffs we did was, “Gamera’s Back And Garson’s Got Him.” This prompted my all time favorite viewer letter (before the internets came along, people somehow managed to communicate with an ancient, primitive method called the “letter.”) In the letter, the viewer pointed out the above Gamera/Garson riff and then asked, “Are you guys really old, or do you just read a lot?” At the time, I could only respond, “We just read a lot.” But now, all these years later, the more accurate response on my part would be, “Yes, I’m old and I read a lot.”
Anyway, I still can’t decide if “The Band Wagon” is my favorite movie musical, or “Singing In The Rain.” I guess I’ll just have to continue watching both of them over and over again until I can make a decision.
A HARD DAYS NIGHT
You probably don’t want to hear another feverish testimonial from another baby boomer about how great the Beatles were, blah, blah, blah; how they changed my life, blah, blah, blah; how their songs, their humor and their style influenced me in every way, blah, blah, blah; how seeing “A Hard Days Night” when it first came out when I was eight years old electrified me and I’ve never been the same since, blah, blah, blah; how Richard Lester’s direction had a major impact on all filmmaking that came after it, blah, blah, blah; how Lester had worked with Spike Milligan and other performers from “The Goon Show,” and how that comic sensibility made it’s way into the film, and how that comic sensibility went on to influence “Monty Python” and so much comedy to come after it (including MST3K), blah, blah, blah; how the music of the Beatles and “A Hard Days Night” both stand the test of time, and are still as great today as they ever were, blah, blah, blah; and how I still love all of their songs, including She Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, turn, turn, turn, there is a season and a time for every baby boomer who won’t shut up about how great the sixties were.
Okay, okay, if you don’t want to hear about it, I won’t bring it up, because that’s exactly how I feel and always will feel about the genius of The Beatles and the genius of “A Hard Days Night.”
ALL THAT JAZZ
Sure, there have been lots of backstage musicals about egomaniacal, alcoholic, speed-freak sex maniacs who drink, drug and screw their ways to a messy and painful early death, and what musical doesn’t have graphic shots of open heart surgery? But still, somehow “All That Jazz” seems to stand out from all the other light-hearted musical comedies.
In case you haven’t seen it, “All That Jazz” is a relentless chronicle of a selfish and narcissistic director-choreographer’s rapid descent into self-destruction, and how he lies, cheats and ultimately hurts all his family and friends, leaving them with devastating emotional pain that will scar their psyches for the rest of their bitter, lonely lives. Yes, it’s a fun movie. Every time I watch “All That Jazz,” I have a rollicking good time.
Oddly enough, I think the weakest link in “All That Jazz” is the music and choreography. The songs are not great songs; they are just tunes from various sources that director/choreographer Bob Fosse used because they helped tell the story he wanted to tell. And that is as it should be, and they work very well in this context, but I’m just saying that the songs themselves, “On Broadway,” “Bye, Bye Love,” “Everything Old Is New Again,” and “You’d Better Change Your Ways” are good but not great songs. There is one hilarious sequence where the songwriter of “New York To LA,” the Broadway musical that Fosse surrogate Joe Gideon (brilliantly played by Roy Scheider, God rest his soul) is working on, plays him the song, “Take Off With Us,” a horrible showtune atrocity that makes Gideon cringe with horror. He then devices an erotic dance number that is probably the best choreography in the movie, but like I said, it doesn’t do much for me. Fortunately, everything else in the movie is so darkly entertaining that it doesn’t matter.
I guess what I’m saying is that it is the genius of Fosse the filmmaker that really comes though for me as opposed to the genius of Fosse the choreographer. And everyone who ever saw his work on Broadway attests to that genius, although I was never lucky to have seen any of his stage work myself. But the opening credits of the movie “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” say that the dances in that film are “based on the original choreography of Bob Fosse,” and I must say I love the two dance numbers in that film, “A Secretary Is Not A Toy,” and “Brotherhood Of Man,” better than any of the dances in “All That Jazz.” In fact, “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” may be my favorite movie adaptation of a Broadway musical. It is damn funny (the original libretto was by Abe Burrows), and the performances (especially Robert Morse, who rules) are terrific, and the songs (by the great, great, great Frank Loesser) are phenomenal, and even the arrangements and jazzy orchestrations of those songs (by Nelson Riddle) are worth the price of admission. But it isn’t a backstage musical so I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it. Oh, what the hell, I’m glad I mentioned it! I’m a baby boomer, and that means I’m a rebel, man!
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