We wish you all a safe 'n' sane Fourth of This Month today and suggest a screening of either of my favorite 7/4 movies — 1776 or Yankee Doodle Dandy. 1776, of course, tells the tale of the battle to write and adopt the Declaration of Independence…and does a marvelous job of building suspense as it tells a tale where we already know the outcome. There's actually a point in the proceedings, a little before "Cool, Conservative Men," where I always find myself thinking for a moment, "Gee, I hope they can get that Declaration voted in but I don't see how." Followers of the movie (or of American history) might be interested in this article that ran recently in Salon, discussing the trafficking in rum that figured so prominently into the American Revolution, and which gets its due in 1776. [To read said article, you'll either need to be a Salon subscriber or watch some advertising.]
Yankee Doodle Dandy, of course, starred Jimmy Cagney as George M. Cohan. It starts with the specious claim that Cohan was born on the Fourth of July (he was not) and like so many Hollywood bio pics, the level of accuracy never gets much higher than that. Based on the extant films and recordings of Mr. Cohan, I would say that the greatest misrepresentation is in the suggestion that he was anywhere near as talented as Mr. Cagney. I don't like the bogus history and I don't like the celebration of Cohan's hollow, "I got mine" brand of flag-waving…but I like Cagney so much in this film that I can overlook the negatives.