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[mmuk2004]

Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942

Cagney was known for his "gangster" image, he did a volte face here with Yankee Doodle Dandy and danced his way with aplomb to an Oscar.

This post has been edited by mmuk2004: Apr 19 2009, 10:31 AM

[Faraaj73]

Yankee Doodle Dandy 1942

Cagney was known for his "gangster" image, he did a volte face here with Yankee Doodle Dandy and danced his way with aplomb to an Oscar.

Great film Madhavi!

Cagney always identified himself as a musical star but Warners typecast him after the success of the gangster film Public Enemy (1931). He got to break out in this role and yes, he danced his way with aplomb! This is a biopic of George M. Cohan, a legendary performer and the only person whose statue is displayed on Broadway in New York. Cohan saw Yankee Doodle Dandy while he was literally on his deathbed - it was screened privately for him a few weeks before he died.

I'm uploading two of Cohan's biggest hits from the 1910s (songs which are quite rare now). I quite like them. Both songs are mp3/128 kbps....




Yojimbo (1961)
Yojimbo, based on noir writer Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest is a magnificently entertaining film. Toshiro Mifune stars as the nobody who calls himself Sanjuro (thirty but closer to forty). He enters a town destroyed by warring factions and plays a double-game to pit one faction against the other thus destroying the criminal element.

Yojimbo (aka The Bodyguard) is one of the coolest and most stylish films ever made. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa's favorite actor, as the scruffy looking Samurai, Yojimbo has all of Kurosawa's qualities and none of the flaws. The music score is an essential element of the plot and strikingly good, but admittedly bettered by the Ennio Morricone version in the Spaghetti Western remake Fistful of Dollars. The visuals are great, from the samurai swordplay, to the desolate streets, the town crier announcing its 3 a.m. to the brutal torture scene.

One of the unique things about Yojimbo is the central character. He is an anti-hero. We see him initially as a killer and a man greedy for money. But then, he saves a family by re-uniting mother and child and giving them all the money he was advanced. Mifune has never been cooler than in this film and Eastwood could only aspire to equal such a performance.

Of the two remakes, I liked Fistful of Dollars for starting the Spaghetti Western genre, although Yojimbo is a far more superior and stylish film. The gangster version, Last Man Standing, was not very good and Bruce Willis made for a poor substitute to Yojimbo.