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Cagney the Dancer and Great on Imitating George M.

posted 11 years ago by mdudnikov
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Some have mentioned about being surprised that Jimmy was portraying a dancer and doing his own steps. Well Cagney started out in musicals and always said he preferred musical parts. One of his famous quotes was that he was "Just a hoofer who got lucky." Hoofer being an older term that meant dancer.

The real George M. Cohen made only one film, or at least only one survives. There is a clip on youtube that is just wonderful and you can see how well Cagney reproduced Cohan's eccentric dancing style, specifically the steps Cagney does in Little Johnny Jones during the Yankee Doodle Boy sequence.

Someone also mentioned being shocked to see a blackface scene in the movie. Well Cohan, as did so many stars back then, appeared in that way and in part of the clip as well.

The clip is from the movie The Phantom President and also features Jimmy Durante and Sidney Toler, the second Charlie Chan. His leading lady is Claudette Colbert. But what is really interesting is that George Barbier was in the film. Barbier also appeared in Yankee Doodle Dandy as Abe Erlanger, a producer who introduces him to Fay Templeton. There are some fictional characters in YDD, but Erlanger was an actual well known and successful Broadway producer, who worked with partner Marc Klaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1iWNdS1Kfg

[–] mmitsos-1 10 years ago

He had such a remarkable and completely UNIQUE style of dancing. In this film, he was doing ballet, essentially, in street shoes...not ballet shoes. And he carried himself almost like a puppet being pulled by strings. And the walking on the walls!!!!!

I remember as a child I was mesmerized by his dancing, and still am today, 40 years later. He was completely enchanting from start to finish, and I'm so happy for him that he won the Oscar for his portrayal. He was simply sublime!!:)