Hollywood patriotism circa the 1940s

Apropos my post about patriotism during Hollywood’s golden age, Bruce Kesler sent me this great video showing both Jimmy Cagney and Mickey Rooney doing their George M. Cohan impressions:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlPR97oYOBA[/youtube]

Since I’m an avid fan of old musicals, I may, for a few days, scatter throughout my posts video links to patriotic songs and dances from Hollywood’s old days.

Jimmy Cagney, by the way, was an ardent, some might say extreme, Democrat.  It’s no coincidence that in two of his films — Footlight Parade and Yankee Doodle Dandy — Franklin Roosevelt made cameo appearances.  Still, Cagney’s movies never deviated from showing a true love of country, warts and all.  My earlier post wasn’t meant to pretend that there weren’t Leftists in Hollywood or that Hollywood didn’t crank out a few pro-Communist, pro-Soviet movies.  These were the minority, though, and did not reflect the overarching trend in movies, which was affection for America.