AFI #98: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

#98 on 2007 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
#100 on 1998 AFI 100 Greatest Movies of All Time

We didn't know much about this movie before we watched it.  Turns out it is a musical biopic about the life of George M. Cohan.  I have heard his songs, but I can't say that I knew a whole lot about George M. Cohan. Here is his wikipedia page.  The movie made a few changes to his life, most notably, cutting out his first wife and all four of his children.  Instead, it focused on him and his patriotic achievements, especially his congressional medal of honor. 

Did we enjoy it?  Well, I enjoyed it.  I love old movie musicals and these are some of the greatest songs ever written.  Of course, I didn't love some of the singing, because the talk-singing style that was popular at that time has always kind of annoyed me.  But it was fun.  I especially enjoyed the "Give My Regards to Broadway" scene, which was from Little Johnny Jones.  And also the song "Off the Record" from I'd Rather Be Right, which is a musical about FDR.  I had never heard of that musical, but how exciting is that?  There is a musical where FDR is a singing, dancing president.  Of course, it's a Rogers and Hart musical, and those can be pretty bad.  But it looks fun.

Mike, didn't enjoy the movie as much as I did.  He thought it was okay, and he agreed with where we should put it on our overall list; above Ben Hur and Toy Story, but below Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.  I imagine that most of the coming movies will go above this one, though.  And speaking of rankings, I have no idea how the AFI people ranked all of these movies.  How do you compare a movie musical from 1942 against an animated movie from 1995?  And there will be mysteries and comedies and dramas and tearjerkers and thrillers and epics.  How exactly is this going to work?  Not only that, but we are ranking them together, so we have to agree on where everything goes.  I think we're just trying to put it in order based on how enjoyable each movie is and whether we would want to watch it again. But I guarantee you that somewhere along the way we are going to come up against some movie that we can't agree on where to put it...  and then we'll probably have to average it or something.  Anyway, if you like old movie musicals and you've never seen this movie, check it out!