Cagney was a staunchly pro-union actor who fought being controlled by the studio system (in his case, Warner Brothers), but I'd never heard of an actor being brought before HUAC until after WWII. Interesting, NewtonUK.
One thing Yankee Doodle Dandy got very wrong was showing Cohan having a moment with FDR. Cohan was as staunchly anti-union as Cagney had been pro-, and showing him "supporting our president" was surely a bit of war time propaganda. He hated FDR.
I don't know how accurate it is otherwise. Film biographies of that era usually played with the facts, and much of what's depicted is on the hokey side, but the musical numbers and vaudeville ambience, topped off with Cagney's ebullience, explain its enduring popularity.
I have never seen George M. William Goldman depicts it as a poor show that somehow got by the critics without ever going over well with audiences in The Season. |
