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''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' is a 1942 {{Musical}} {{Biopic}} film directed by Creator/MichaelCurtiz, starring Creator/JamesCagney and Creator/WalterHuston. It tells the life story of Broadway song-and-dance man George M. Cohan, composer of such classic songs as "Over There", "You're a Grand Old Flag", "Give My Regards to Broadway", and the title tune. Cohan's life and career are depicted from his beginnings with his family's vaudeville act, to fame and fortune as a Broadway composer and American patriot.

The film begins in the (then) PresentDay, with Cohan having just come out of retirement to play [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt President Roosevelt]] in his best friend's new musical ''I'd Rather Be Right''. After the show, he's summoned to meet the real President. Cohan chats with Roosevelt, recalling his early days on the stage. The story then flashes back to his youth, starting with his birth.

The Four Cohans perform successfully. Later, in partnership with another struggling writer, Sam Harris, they finally interest a producer and are on the road to success. George also weds Mary, a young singer and dancer. As his star ascends, he persuades his now-struggling parents to join his act, eventually vesting some of his valuable theatrical properties in their name.

A critical and commercial triumph, ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' won three UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s, including Best Actor for Cagney. It was inducted into the UsefulNotes/NationalFilmRegistry in 1993. The most famous scene in the movie, Cagney's tap dance down a White House staircase, was done without any rehearsal.

Cagney would briefly [[RoleReprise reprise the Cohan role]] for a cameo in the 1955 film ''The Seven Little Foys'', in which he performs a tabletop challenge dance with Creator/BobHope as Cohan's friend and rival Eddie Foy.

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!!This work provides examples of:

* AdaptedOut: Cohan's several children are omitted from the narrative.
* AgeCut: Teenaged George Cohan demands his mail at a hotel. Pan to his feet, cut to a different pair of feet, pan up to James Cagney as the adult Cohan demanding his mail at a hotel.
* ArtisticLicenceHistory: Among many other historical liberties, the song "Mary Is a Grand Old Name" was a tribute to his ''daughter'' Mary (although his second wife was named Agnes Mary ), the last of the Four Cohans to pre-decease George was his mother rather than his father, the failure of ''Popularity'' happened nine years before the sinking of the ''Lusitania'' rather than concurrently with it, and Cohan's run as FDR in ''I'd Rather Be Right'' happened three years after he received the Congressional Gold Medal.
* AsYouKnow: Some dialogue establishing that the other Cohans have an offer to play in Boston, but George has been blackballed due to his obnoxiousness.
* {{Blackface}}: The Four Cohans, in one of their shows.
* CallBack:
** We see Cohan composing the melody to "Over There", followed by the song being performed at a rally as America enters UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. 25 years later, as America enters UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the song is sung again.
* TheCameo: Eddie Foy Jr. appears in one scene as his own father, Eddie Foy Sr.
* CompositeCharacter: Cohan's respective wives Ethel Levey and Agnes Mary Nolan are fused into a singular Mary Cohan for the film.
* DatedHistory: Cagney as a dancing UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt comes off as odd to a modern viewer, but back in the day Roosevelt's paralysis was carefully concealed from the public.
* {{Eagleland}}: One of the most unapologetic Flavor 1 examples ever made.
* ExtraExtraReadAllAboutIt: "Extra! Extra! ''Lusitania'' torpedoed by German sub!"
* FramingDevice: Cohan relates his life story to FDR after the President presents him with the Congressional Gold Medal.
* HappilyMarried: George and Mary (played by Joan Leslie).
* InvisiblePresident[=/=]TheFaceless: FDR's face is never shown.
%%* JukeboxMusical
* MeaningfulEcho: When the Four Cohans perform together, George M. Cohan thanks the audience by saying, "My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you and I thank you." At the end of the movie when President Franklin Roosevelt presents him with the Congressional Medal, Cohan thanks the President with those same words.
* AMinorKidroduction: After the opening scene with Cohan meeting Roosevelt, Cohan's story starts with Cohan's birth, and continues with him as a prima donna teenager in the family show, before Cagney takes over.
* TheMusicalMusical: The presentation of Cohan's music and Cagney's recreation of Cohan's performances are far more accurate than the portrayal of Cohan's life story.
* OffTheRecord: "Off the Record" from the musical ''I'd Rather Be Right'' is prominently featured.
* TheOner: There's a long shot late in the movie panning over various Times Square advertisements of Cohan's musicals through the years.
* ThePrimaDonna: Young George Cohan is very much this, which winds up getting him blackballed by various theater managers.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Production on this film started just a few days before the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII attack on Pearl Harbor]]. After the attack, Warner Brothers then decided to make the most over-the-top patriotic film ever, and they did.
* SensationalStaircaseSequence: Done near the end, with Creator/JamesCagney dancing down a short flight to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Also a case of ThrowItIn.
* SignificantBirthDate: The hero of this super-patriotic film was, as the title song puts it, "born on the Fourth of July".[[note]]Although his official birth certificate gave the date as July 3, 1878, Cohan and his family always insisted it was actually July 4.[[/note]]
* TitleDrop: The title to one of Cohan's most famous songs.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The version of Cohan's life presented in the film takes a very BroadStrokes approach where the main points are there but the details are heavily fictionalized especially his personal life. After seeing the finished product, Cohan's daughter Georgette observed "That's the kind of life Daddy would have liked to have lived."
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