Klarinet Archive - Posting 000654.txt from 2005/03

From: "Lelia Loban" <lelialoban@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] George M Cohan
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:50:14 -0500


Dan Leeson wrote,
>You are speaking about George M. Cohan whose
>popularity as a song writer, singer, actor, dancer,
>and Broadway show host made him the toast of the
>American Musical Theater until the late 1930s or
>perhaps the early 1940s. Among his songs were
>"You're a Grand Old Flag," "Mary," and "Give My
>Regards To Broadway." I never saw the musical
>but there was a movie made about him with James
>Cagney starring as Cohan.

Cagney won an Academy Award for Best Actor in that role, in "Yankee Doodle
Dandy" (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Jack L. Warner,
for Warner Brothers. The picture won three Academy Awards from eight
nominations. (The winners besides Cagney were Musical Director Leo F.
Forbstein and Orchestrator Ray Heindorf for Best Score, Musical; and Nathan
Levinson and his department for Best Sound.) Cohan had reserved the right
to approve the casting and also Robert Buckner's and Edmund Joseph's
screenplay. The movie opened on Broadway with a benefit performance (seats
ranged from $25 up to $25,000) that earned $5,750,000, all of it donated to
the U. S. Treasury Dept. for War Bonds. (These statistics come from Homer
C. Dickens, "The Complete Films of James Cagney." New York: Citadel, 1989
rpt. of 1972, p. 168 ff.)

I have a special memory associated with this musical because my high
school, Terra Linda High in Marin(ated) County, California, set some
unfortunate original lyrics to "Yankee Doodle Boy" for our school fight
song. I don't recall most of the lyrics, though I remember thinking they
were beyond lame; but they started out, "I'm a Terra Linda Trojan." Yes,
we voted, and we chose as our mascot--a Trojan. This was not a wise choice
for a high school in the 1960s. Thereafter, our school band frequently
marched to the tune of opposing cheerleaders and crowds bellowing out their
own original, dirty lyrics to this tune. At the end of the song, the
opponents would roar with one gleeful voice, "Trojans pop under pressure!"
Despite much determined slayage from the School Board, the PTA and various
faculty members, the alternate lyrics came back to life more often than
Dracula. Can't watch Cagney hoofin' to that song without thinking of the
bad old days....

Well, truth be known, I can't see Jimmy Cagney playing anybody in anything
without mentally superimposing Cody Jarrett in "White Heat" or Tom Powers
in "The Public Enemy." Too bad, in a way, because for all that Cagney
played his gangsters with unforgettable ferocity, he strongly preferred to
play lighthearted hoofer roles.

Lelia Loban
Are you watching Big Brother?

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