Kick-Back Friday: #21

What else? Yankee Doodle Dandy starring New York boy, James Cagney, with songs by (who else?) George M. Cohan (along with Rodgers and Hart [see below]). The backstage story of the theatrical Cohan family, told in flashback by George M. to FDR, is directed by one of the great, immigrant, studio-contract directors, Michael Curtiz (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Mildred Pierce, Casablanca).

When we finally see Cagney's Cohan play FDR in "Off the Record," the President not only walks, he dances:

When I was courting Eleanor, I told her Uncle Teddy,
I wouldn't run for President, unless the job was steady.
Don't print it. Strictly off the record.