Reeling Backward: "Yankee Doodle Dandy"

James Cagney was a terrific dancer, but he was one of the earliest and perhaps most (in)famous practitioner of the dubious art of talk-singing.

Like other film actors who carried on the tradition such as Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady," Cagney couldn't hold a sustained note. (Or, on the rare occasions when he tries to, like with the title song, his voice is noticeably weak.)

The solution was to have him do a sort of melodic form of speaking that emulates the rhythm and tone of singing, but without any sort of musical lilt.

I suppose that's an acceptable solution if he just had a song or two in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," but it's a biopic of one of the greatest song-and-dance men Broadway ever saw. So to have him constantly standing there doing that strange vocal cadence while everyone else in the movie is singing their hearts out gets a little old after awhile.

The obvious alternative would have been to have another actor dub Cagney's singing. But he had such a distinctive voice -- a hard, close-throated moan with elongated vowels -- that it was likely impossible to find someone who could sing while still sounding like Jimmy Cagney.

This doesn't detract from his dancing, which is spectacular. My favorite bit is when he is playing an old man on stage, and a fan (who would later become his wife) thinks he really is old, and is surprised when he does a frenetic tap number that would have left a man of half of his presumed years in a puddle.

Cagney plays George M. Cohan, one of the early giants of Broadway, who wrote a number of songs that still linger today: "Over There," "Give My Regards to Broadway," "The Yankee Doodle Boy," "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Mary Is a Grand Old Name."

The movie starts with him as a child star in the family act, The Four Cohans, with his parents (Walter Huston and Rosemary DeCamp) and sister Rosie (Cagney's real-life sibling Jeanne). Through spunk and grit, he manages to get his own show staged along with longtime partner Sam Harris (Richard Whorf) and eventually becomes the biggest name on Broadway.

The framing story is rather cutesy: After opening his big return act portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cohan is summoned by the president to a night meeting at the White House. Figuring he's going to get chewed out by the chief executive, he instead tells FDR his life story. At the end he's given the Medal of Honor by a special act of Congress. (It's unclear if the film meant the Congressional Gold Medal; the Medal of Honor is strictly for military heroism.)

The story is built around the various songs and shows that highlighted Cohan's life, along with his courting and marriage of Mary (Joan Leslie). It's a rousing good time, with Cagney giving a memorable (when not talk-singing) performance as the cocky but good-hearted Irishman. Cohan's shows were noted for their comedy and unabashed patriotism

"Yankee Doodle Dandy" was directed by Michael Curtiz, one of the great Golden Age directors who doesn't get the recognition of other giants of that era. In that same year, 1942, he also directed Cagney as a fighter pilot in "Captains of the Clouds," and a little picture called "Casablanca."

In this era, when filmmakers like James Cameron or Terrence Malick can go a decade or more between feature films, the prolificacy and quality of work by someone like Curtiz is astonishing.

3 stars

Reeling Backward: "All That Jazz"

Thematically and structurally, "All That Jazz" is pretty similar to "Nine," the new movie musical that underwhelmed me. So how come I liked this 1979 film waaaay more?

"Jazz" is director/choreographer Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical take on his crazy life in the mid-1970s, when he was staging the Broadway musical "Chicago" while simultaneously editing his film "Lenny." It's a narcissistic, self-absorbed portrait of the tortured artist -- but an often thrilling one.

Much of the film's enjoyment is derived, of course, from the wonderful dancing. Ann Reinking in particular is a revelation as Kate Jagger, the girlfriend of Joe Gideon, the Fosse stand-in. Reinking embodies the long-limbed, sensual style of dance that Fosse epitomized, and all her dance scenes are knockouts.

My favorite bit is the somewhat impromptu show Kate and Joe's daughter Michelle (Erzsebet Foldi, in her only screen role) put on for him in his apartment to "Everything Old Is New Again." Click the link to watch it on YouTube; it's a playful, wondrous delight.

Joe Gideon is played by Roy Scheider in perhaps his greatest role. It's not what you'd expect, since Scheider was the ultimate cinematic man's man in movies like "Jaws," "Marathon Man" and "The French Connection."

He's cast against type as the flamboyant Gideon, who is a workaholic, drug addict and rogue who sleeps around haphazardly, but is enraged when Kate does the same thing to him.

One of the film's signature bits is a quick montage of Joe's morning ritual -- Vivaldi music on tape deck, Visine for reddened eyes, popping pills, shower and a cynical declaration to his mirrored reflection, "It's showtime, folks!"

Perhaps the most memorable sequence from the film is the opening scene, a six-minute open casting call for Joe's new show. Hundreds of dancers go through their routines in unison, trying desperately to stand out and catch the famed choreographer's eye. Joe personally informs every dancer he rejects, which lets you know that even though he's a prick, he's not a heartless one.

Interspersed throughout the film are hallucinatory encounters with Joe's muse/angel/interlocutor, played by Jessica Lange in white raiment. She asks him about his life, needles him and flirts with him.

Another favorite scene was the one where Joe presents his choreography of the show to his financial backers. The first sequence is a sexy romp that pleases them mightily, but then it segues into a darkened mass of naked bodies and writhing limbs. It's brilliant -- Joe's ex-wife, Audrey (Leland Palmer), dubs it his best work ever -- but it scares the bejeezus out of the producers, who worry about losing the family crowd.

Joe gets sick halfway through production, and the show goes on hiatus while he recovers. The final long sequence is a showstopper performance with Joe as the star, Ben Vereen as MC, and Audrey and Kate as the principle dancers. It's sung to "Bye Bye Love," in a mournful and prophetic rendition that I'm sure the Every Brothers never imagined.

I'm not sure if "All That Jazz" really amounts to anything. As autobiography, it rings false since it's about a guy who comes to accept death, and obviously Bob Fosse kept on living, since he directed the movie. But it's a weird and wonderful celebration of the Fosse style.

3.5 stars

Review: "The Princess and the Frog"

"The Princess and the Frog" is a delightful throwback to old-school Disney animation, when hand-drawn art took precedence over computerized images, when animals always talked, when characters couldn't help bursting into song, and trained vocal actors were preferred over gimmicky celebrity casting.

OK, that last part isn't entirely true -- Oprah, Terrence Howard and John Goodman provide voices for some minor characters. But the heavy lifting is left to actors you may have never heard of, whose vocal work -- especially their singing of the jazz-inspired tunes by Randy Newman -- is top-notch.

"Princess" is a break from the past in one way: It's the first Disney animated film to feature an African-American princess.

True, Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) starts out closer to scullery maid territory, and spends most of the movie voodooed into a slimy green frog. But our black heroine gets her tiara -- and her prince -- in the end.

The story is set in 1920s New Orleans, depicted in bold colors as a delightful gumbo of races and classes freely mixing. Young Tiana and her parents dream of opening their own restaurant, but dad is killed in the war and Tiana spends her youth working two waitress jobs.

The town's abuzz about the arrival of Prince Naveen of Meldonia (Bruno Campos), a charming rake who's looking to marry the daughter of the local titan of business because he's been cut off from the family fortune. Unfortunately, the snaky voodoo "shadow man," Dr. Facilier (Keith David), turns him into a frog in a bid to get the riches for himself.

Naveen convinces Tiana to kiss him in order to change him back to human, but the spell backfires and turns her into a frog, too. They spend the rest of the movie having adventures in the swamp and the streets of New Orleans while striving to get changed back to normal -- falling for each other in the process, of course.

There's the usual Disney assort of colorful supporting characters, human and otherwise.

Louis (Michael Leon-Wooley) is a tubby alligator who yearns to play trumpet in a jazz band, while Raymond (Jim Cummings) is a snaggle-toothed Cajun firefly who pitches woo to the North Star, whom he calls Evangeline and imagines is another insect.

Then there's Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), a swamp-dwelling blind old lady whose white magic counters Dr. Facilier's dark arts.

Newman's songs are a rainbow of styles, with several standout tunes audiences will be humming on the way home. There's "Almost There," Tiana's jouncy affirmation of aspiring dreams, and Mama Odie's "Dig a Little Deeper," a gospel-inspired call to concentrate on the important things in life.

I also enjoyed Raymond's waltz-like love song, "Ma Belle Evangeline." And Dr. Facilier boasts about his alliance with the voodoo spirits in "Friends on the Other Side," which is combined with imaginative, eye-popping visuals for a real show-stopper.

"The Princess and the Frog" comes from the writing/directing team of Ron Clements and John Musker (with a writing assist from Rob Edwards and several others), who previously helmed "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin."

They've been sidelined for the last seven years -- the under-appreciated "Treasure Planet" was their last project -- as animation ambitions shifted almost exclusively to computers. Hopefully, Disney's first-class return to its roots will signal that there's room enough in the future for some of the past.

3.5 stars