Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Along with Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Cagney invented the gangster stereotype, in a way that would remain largely unaltered until Brando. When someone imitates a 1930’s gangster, they are aping one of these men, possibly without knowing it. That’s why it’s so odd to see Cagney go crazy, Broadway-style, in this musical biopic of George M. Cohan. The film was a labor of love for Cagney, who had himself been an Irish-American song-and-dance man before his break in gangster films. And it was for this wildly patriotic film that Cagney won a much-deserved Oscar.
