Starting to think Cagney was in too many films! Ha. At least Robert Donat's filmography would be easier to complete (I watched Mr Chips last night, an Oscar winner from a couple years earlier).
I have a positive review of it on Letterboxd as I recall, so I basically agree. I quite fancy seeing a terrible performance. Only truly great actors can be truly terrible.
The mad limping assassin called Limpy in the same film as Cagney's increasingly impressive physical performance is a dichotomy of tones. I appreciated it, though.
I had a bit of an allergic reaction to the music today. Maybe it was just me today. I am usually such a sucker for musicals, even ones where I don't particularly like the music, but I really found it annoying, in conjunction with the Cohan character.
I nearly bought the French bluray of Ragtime a few times, and now it appears to be more difficult to get. But, I have been meaning to see it for ages. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye seems a much easier film to get to.
Coincidentally, I watched Each Dawn I Die last Saturday, and I thought Cagney was great in it. The bit where he loses it with the Warden after a month in the hole. Top stuff.
Haven't seen any of the other 3! Added to the endless list. Cheers.
Cagney's brilliant in it, but maybe too brilliant. You want to throw his Cohan out of a window (or into action in the nearest war). When can American spirit met Scottish can't arsed post-work with such a racket.
Here's the worst complaint imaginable about a musical, I reckon there is too much music in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Just endless skits and singing, and Cagney tapping right into my temporal lobe with his incessant energy.
Cagney was well worth his Oscar. Though, every time I watch a film from 1942, I remind myself that I have never seen Random Harvest. Mrs Miniver was Mrs Miniver's film, sorry Walter Pidgeon. Gary Cooper has too many Oscars as it is. And has anyone seen The Pied Piper and Monty Wooley's turn.
Finally watching Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning and I don't think there's a supporting actor I dislike more than Simon Pegg. He is the Scrappy Doo of action cinema.
The Best Actor race in 1939 was pretty interesting. Donat won for Chips, beating James Stewart for Mr Smith Goes to Washington; Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, Laurence Olivier for Wuthering Heights, and Mickey Rooney for Babes in Arms.
I can see why, even if I would have given it to Stewart.
It doesn't necessarily hang together as a narrative, not in the way say that The Long Gray Line does (a 5 star masterpiece), but Donat gives it enough to keep you completely engaged. He rises to the third act challenger of the war as both character and actor, in 1939 that must have resonated.
