James Cagney's Oscar-winning turn as musical patriot George M. Cohan kicks off this summer's family film series The Essentials Jr. on Turner Classic Movies.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, TCM) isn't one of Hollywood's bigger musicals, being filmed in black-and-white during World War II, but it's surely one of the most heartfelt. Its portrait of the prolific songwriter (You're a Grand Old Flag, Over There) made the American Film Institute's list of America's top 100 movies.
This was also Cagney's favorite of the 70-plus pictures he made between 1930 and 1960, since Dandygave him the chance to escape Hollywood's gangster pigeonhole and return to his origins. Though he'd started on Broadway as a lighthearted song-and-dance man, Cagney got to make only a handful of movie musicals in a factory town where studios preferred to cash in on his tough-guy appeal.
John Lithgow takes over as TCM's Essentials Jr. host this summer, presenting a varied slate of 13 time-tested films for parents and kids to enjoy together -- comedy, mystery, musical, Hitchcock suspense, even whatever-Elvis-does.
TCM's 2009 Essentials Jr. lineup:
June 7: Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), starring James Cagney
June 14: To Have and Have Not (1944), Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
June 21: Father of the Bride (1950), Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor
June 28: The Philadelphia Story (1940), Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
July 5: Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953), Jacques Tati
July 12: The African Queen (1951), Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn
July 19: An American in Paris(1951), Gene Kelly
July 26: High Noon (1952), Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly
Aug. 2: Heaven Can Wait (1978), Warren Beatty, Jack Warden
Aug. 9: Notorious (1946), Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman
Aug. 16: It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), Elvis Presley
Aug. 23: Gaslight (1944), Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman
Aug. 30: You Can't Take It With You (1938), James Stewart, Jean Arthur
Visit TCM's Essentials Jr. site for a printable schedule, film info, video clips and more.