james cagney: a man without guilt
by Douglas Messerli
Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph
(screenplay, based on a story by Robert Buckner), Julius J. Epstein and Philip
G. Epstein (writers, uncredited), George M. Cohan (songs), Michael Curtiz
(director) Yankee Doddle Dandy /
1942
For those who have
only seen Cagney in his gangster films such as Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and G Men, it will come as a surprise, I am sure, that he was also—if
almost accidentally—one of Hollywood's greatest dancers. Playing George M.
Cohan performing in one of his musicals as a jockey who has been accused of
fixing a race, Cagney awaits a signal from a nearby ship to tell him of the
decision of the jury: he has been acquitted and his dance to the tune of
"Yankee Doddle Dandy" is a joyfully nervous tapping out of his
absolute delight that is so original in its combinations of straight tap,
turns, spins, and occasional leaps that it is clearly something that he has
created himself, outside of the more conventional dance numbers of the film
choreographed by Seymour Felix and LeRoy Prinz. Cagney's whole body is so naturally jumpy that he seems like a
marionette on strings, as others have described him; but unlike Ray Bolger's
puppet-like Straw Man, Cagney's legs, hands, and shoulders appear never to come
to rest, as they dangle at the very moment his torso seems to rise. Instead of
being pulled back to earth by gravity, Cagney seems unable to come to rest, his
feet nervously tapping away something like the horses this jockey might have
raced. Given the heaviness of most of his verbal roles, we are understandably
stunned by his lightness of foot. And he can even sing!
Los Angeles, March 2, 2011
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