As you know, TigerBlog has a standing offer to anyone who wants to write a guest entry.
Some have taken him up on it through the years and contributed more than once. Today he offers a guest debut, this time from Henry Von Kohorn of the Class of 1966.
Henry is one of TB's favorite Princeton fans. He's a loyal Tiger through and through, but his contributions to Princeton run to more than just the athletic.
He is a former head of the Alumni Council. In addition, it was Henry who back in 2003 founded the Princeton Prize on Race Relations. This is from the award website:
The Princeton Prize in Race Relations (PPRR) was founded in the fall of
2003. Founder Henry Von Kohorn '66 recognized the need to support and
encourage young high school students committed to fostering positive
race relations within their communities. Henry's vision was founded on
the notion that early encouragement, reward and support for these
students would motivate them to continue this critical work in college
and beyond. Further, that these students would create a virtuous cycle
that would continue to foster positive race relations well beyond the
scope of their initial projects.
After TB wrote about "Yankee Doodle Dandy" earlier this week, he received this from Henry on his own love of the movie. TB thanks Henry for this, and for everything he's done for Princeton, and he hopes you enjoy:
I’m patriotic, and I love the 4th of July – the parades, the picnics, and the fireworks. But, to me, the holiday isn’t complete without a viewing of Yankee Doodle Dandy, the film biography of George M. Cohan, composer of such American standards as You’re a Grand Old Flag, Over There, Give My Regards to Broadway, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy (formally, The Yankee Doodle Boy), and Over There – the unofficial anthem of World War I. The movie tracks Cohan’s life and career from his days as a child member of his family’s vaudeville act, The Four Cohans, to the very pinnacle of Broadway success. Yankee Doodle Dandy opened on Memorial Day, 1942. Its hokey, patriotic, flag-waving enthusiasm was the perfect vehicle for a country then mobilizing for war.
As is often the case with older films, to those with a modern sensibility the movie contains a couple of cringe-inducing moments, neither vital to the plot. The first, a short clip that depicts The Four Cohans singing and dancing in blackface; the second, an interlude with former slaves paying obeisance to the Great Emancipator by singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Yet despite these awkward segments, I can’t help it; I love the movie.
Where to begin? Perhaps in the mid-to-late 1950s. I’m at home watching TV. The program is “Million Dollar Movie” on WOR, channel 9 in New York. Million Dollar Movie’s formula was to show the same film twice a day, every day, for a week. It presented Yankee Doodle Dandy annually during 4th of July week. I watched it time and again, year-after-year.
There was something about the movie that I found simply mesmerizing – the songs, the unabashed patriotism, the energy, and the Oscar-winning, against-type performance by noted tough-guy, James Cagney. Who knew that Cagney could dance so brilliantly? I now find it fascinating that the director, a Hungarian Jew named Michael Curtiz, directed the quintessentially American Yankee Doodle Dandy, which he immediately followed up with Casablanca, another beloved wartime classic.
After years of watching it on TV, when I first saw Yankee Doodle Dandy on the big screen, I was utterly shocked to discover that the red, white, and bluest of all movies was in black and white. Yet I can’t help it; I love the movie.
The film is full of memorable scenes that have me either smiling or tearing up, sometimes simultaneously.
Between acts of the play in which she’s currently starring, George M. Cohan attempts to attract a skeptical Fay Templeton (Irene Manning) to star in his next production. Leaving to go on stage, she mentions that her refuge from the theater is only 45 minutes away, at her home in New Rochelle. Cohan writes Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway between acts of the play and presents it to her afterwards. Cue the smiles.
Cohan later visits his girlfriend, Mary (Joan Leslie). He brings her an enormous bouquet of flowers and an equally large box of candy. Then he proposes marriage – all before revealing that he has given the song written for her, Mary’s a Grand Old Name, to Fay Templeton, who has agreed to star in his next show. Mary says, “I knew you did when you brought the candy and flowers.” Cue the smiles, cue the tears.
After their vaudeville performance, The Four Cohans, are taking a curtain call. George’s father (Walter Huston) asks his son to say a few words. In what becomes his signature speech, Cohan says, “My mother thanks you; my father thanks you; my sister thanks you; and I thank you.” Cue the smiles. Many years later, George’s father, delirious on his deathbed, asks how that evening’s show had been received, Cohan tells him that it had gone very well and that he had closed by saying, “My mother thanks you; my father thanks you; my sister thanks you; and I thank you.” Cue the tears.
The most iconic scene in the movie occurs towards the end. Cohan is sitting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to whom he has recounted his life story in flashback. Roosevelt then presents Cohan with the Congressional Gold Medal for writing Over There and It’s a Grand Old Flag, examples of his many patriotic contributions to the American spirit. As Cohan takes his leave, his footfalls echo in the marble stairway while I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy plays in the background. Without warning, Cohan begins to tap dance his way down the stairs before slowing to a walk at the bottom. Cue the smiles.
As Cohan exits the White House, there is a military parade on Pennsylvania Avenue. A band is playing and soldiers are singing Over There. He silently joins the line of march and is asked by a soldier, “What’s the matter old-timer, don’t you know the words?” Cohan grins and starts to sing along. Cue the smiles, cue the tears.
I’m far from alone in my devotion to this movie. Some years ago, the Times ran a series entitled “Watching Movies With/” in which filmmakers talked about their favorite pictures. In November 2001 just after the 9/11 attacks, John Travolta, another notable actor/dancer, raved about Yankee Doodle Dandy. “How often does a movie really evoke that level of emotion, you know? --- and continually, throughout the piece, unabashedly so. I just love it --- Jimmy Cagney made you feel patriotic in that movie --- I get chills just thinking about it.”
Princeton is fortunate to have the Garrden theater that shows classic films, mostly in the summer. In 2018, I convinced the management to screen Yankee Doodle Dandy on the 4th of July. The theater was close to full, and the audience was enthusiastic. What a treat to see it again on the big screen, if only in black and white. I can’t help it; I love the movie.
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