Wednesday, April 12 | 2 Films
No matter the genre of the film he was in, James Cagney always brought unique, riveting energy to the screen. Known best for his tough-guy and gangster roles, a persona cemented by his fourth picture, The Public Enemy (1931), Cagney had actually started his showbiz career in 1920s vaudeville as a song and dance man, and to the end of his life he thought of himself primarily as a hoofer. Hollywood didn’t give him a chance to show off those talents until his fourteenth film, Footlight Parade (1933), and even after that movie’s success, Cagney went on to make surprisingly few musicals.
His finest musical showcase, however, was unquestionably Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Warner Bros.’ musical biography of George M. Cohan, the writer, producer, composer, dancer and singer who ruled Broadway over the first quarter of the twentieth century. Among Cohan’s standards are “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Mary’s a Grand Old Name,” “Over There” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” He was also an American success story, rising from vaudeville with his parents and sister (who performed as The Four Cohans), and incorporating flag-waving patriotism into his work. With Hollywood starting to churn out wartime morale-boosting films, Cohan’s life story was ideal subject matter in 1942. (Production actually started on December 3, 1941, four days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.)
Cagney took a great interest in doing justice to Cohan, who was then 63 and had contractual approval over the finished film. When Cagney read Robert Buckner’s screenplay, he was surprised to find “not a single laugh” and insisted that Warner Bros. hire the writing team of Julius and Philip Epstein to inject humor—which they did, uncredited. To perfect Cohan’s distinctive, strutting style of dance, Cagney rehearsed with choreographer John Boyle, who had worked with Cohan extensively in the 1920s. Cagney also channeled Cohan’s singing voice, which was more like rhythmic speaking, and brought his own charismatic talent to the romantic, comedic and dramatic scenes. During a deathbed sequence with Walter Huston, Cagney’s performance had the entire crew in tears—including director Michael Curtiz, who ruined a take with his sobbing and said afterward, “Jimmy, you break my heart.”
In order to craft such a moving, engaging story, Yankee Doodle Dandy had to do a bit of conjuring with regards to some elements of Cohan’s life. He was actually married twice, for instance, and neither wife was named Mary; in the film, he is wed to Mary (Joan Leslie), whose character incorporates qualities of each of the real wives and allows for a plot link to the famous song “Mary’s a Grand Old Name.” But in general, the arc of Cohan’s life is portrayed correctly, including the detail of a brief blackface number performed by The Four Cohans, historically accurate for its 1890s setting. Perhaps the craftiest bit of storytelling magic comes at the end, when Cohan’s World War I song, “Over There,” is used as a rousing bridge to present-day 1942, showing Cohan’s talent still inspiring American fighting forces and the public.
Joan Leslie later recalled Cagney’s total ease as he improvised choreography on the spot. Their charming “Harrigan” number was not originally meant to be sung by the pair taking turns, as it is onscreen. “He put it all together in about fifteen minutes before we shot it,” she said. Another burst of inspiration resulted in a cherished moment in Hollywood history, in which Cagney tap dances down the White House staircase.
Yankee Doodle Dandy was the third-biggest moneymaker of 1942 and scored eight Oscar nominations, winning for Score, Sound and Actor—the sole Academy Award of James Cagney’s career. George M. Cohan saw the picture shortly before he died in November 1942 and reportedly said afterward, “My God, what an act to follow.” The next morning, he sent Cagney a congratulatory telegram.
Following Yankee Doodle Dandy, Cagney made an acrimonious departure from Warner Bros. in order to independently produce (with his brother William) and star in his own movies. Over the next six years, however, the brothers only turned out three uneven feature films, with Cagney’s most notable success coming in a fourth film, 13 Rue Madeleine (1946), that he made freelance for Twentieth Century-Fox. By 1948, Cagney needed a splashy hit in order to reaffirm his star status and so he somewhat reluctantly agreed to return to Warner Bros. to play Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949)—his first gangster role since The Roaring Twenties (1939). The studio marketed White Heat as a return to form for the actor, and it worked: “The old Jimmy is back,” declared Life magazine. The picture was an enormous hit, and Cody became one of Cagney’s defining roles.
Like The Roaring Twenties, White Heat was helmed by the great action director Raoul Walsh, who had a great gift for maintaining a film’s pace and momentum. White Heat flies by with lightning speed, boasting constant movement in the frame, by the camera, or in Cagney’s twitchy, unpredictable performance. As Cody says, “You know how jittery I am—at any minute I’m liable to explode!”
Cody Jarrett is one of cinema’s most fascinating characters. Clever, charismatic and psychopathic, he emanates danger at every moment and is meaner and more homicidal than any previous Cagney character. In one scene, he gnaws on a chicken leg while casually shooting into a car trunk to give his prisoner “a little air.” In another, he violently kicks a chair out from under his wife Verna (Virginia Mayo). Later, he surprises Verna in a dark garage and places her in a headlock so terrifying that Mayo later said she was glad she remembered her lines—or Cagney might not have let go.
Cody’s toughness and violence, however, are not the only reasons he is so intriguing. He’s also a man who needs his mother—to the point of having an Oedipus complex. Ma Jarrett, played by Margaret Wycherly, is there to massage his scalp when he gets headaches and violent seizures, and to encourage him to act tough with his gang and show them who’s boss. At one point, Cody plops into his Ma’s lap for a hug, an action that was Cagney’s idea and which he pulls off with aplomb. Ma and Cody are one of the great mother-son screen pairings, and her still, unblinking demeanor is the only force in the story that ever allows the tense Cody to relax.
One of Cagney’s most famous acting moments comes in the prison mess hall sequence, where news of his mother’s death causes Cody to go berserk while hundreds of prisoners watch in stunned silence. Cagney is unforgettable as he slowly processes a whispered piece of information, then rises to a level of anguish that takes complete control of his flailing body and produces an otherworldly wail. Upon hearing that Walsh wanted 600 extras for this scene, cost-conscious studio chief Jack Warner ordered it reset in a prison chapel. Walsh fought back, asking, “What’s Cody Jarrett doing in the chapel—praying?” Walsh told Warner that if he could shoot it in the cafeteria as planned, he would finish it in one day with just 300 extras. Warner relented, and Walsh filmed it one morning before lunchtime. Most of the extras had no idea what Cagney was going to do, and their surprise is genuine. One later told Cagney biographer John McCabe, “It scared the bejesus out of us. You’d swear to God he’d gone insane.”
With such a powerful central performance, it’s easy to take for granted the rest of the cast, especially Steve Cochran and Virginia Mayo, whose characters engage in an affair behind Cody’s back. Mayo’s stunning beauty has always kept her underrated as an actress. While she could play good girls just fine, she excelled at the bad ones, and she is a highlight here, whether spitting out her gum in order to kiss Cagney, displaying wide-eyed terror when Cagney attacks her or trying in vain to strike a deal with the police to save her own hide. That attempted deal making comes during the buildup to White Heat’s finale, which culminates in a legendary payoff to Ma’s refrain that her son will one day be on “top of the world.”
As a tribute to James Cagney’s versatility and energy as a performer, there could be no better pairing than Yankee Doodle Dandy and White Heat.
