The Phantom President

George M. Cohan who in the first decade of the last century was as the title of one of his songs and biography The Man Who Owned Broadway was considered old fashioned by 1932. Still as a performer he had considerable box office and he responded to the pleas of Jesse L. Lasky to come over to Paramount to make his sound motion picture debut. But the songs were to be written by a pair of relative newcomers Rodgers&Hart.

It's come down in show business legend how Cohan barely dealt with them while The Phantom President was in production. He thought they were second rate songwriters and truth be told Cohan thought just everyone else was second rate next to him. He had that kind of ego. But he had the talent to back it up and truth be told the songs that Dick and Larry wrote for this film were truly second rate.

The musical format of this film was song patter, no individual numbers that could have been hits were written for The Phantom President. The patter format worked well in Love Me Tonight and Hallelujah I'm A Bum, but many song hits came from Love Me Tonight and Hallelujah I'm A Bum boasted You Are Too Beautiful from that score. Nothing like that comes from The Phantom President. Maybe Cohan could have written a better score, in fact he was given one number to be interpolated.

But The Phantom President is first rate political satire with Cohan playing a double role, a cold fish millionaire who is running for President of the USA and a carnival medicine show man that his political handlers recruit to go out and do the campaign as he's got a personality the voting public will warm up to.

The political end works well, but carnival Cohan starts cutting in on millionaire Cohan's time with Claudette Colbert a former president's daughter and someone who the millionaire thinks would be a great first lady. He takes some drastic action.

The four handlers are well cast also, George Barbier, Louise Mackintosh, Sidney Toler, Julius McVickers are all familiar enough in roles that are suited to all of them. And of course we have Jimmy Durante who is gloriously himself with some interpolated material for him as well in the song Schnozzola.

There are so many performers whose salad days were well before talking motion pictures were invented that we should be grateful that at least we can see something of what Broadway saw with George M. Cohan. And his dancing style; well you can see why James Cagney was cast in the autobiographical Yankee Doodle Dandy.

"The Phantom President" is the only sound movie still in existence that has George M. Cohan in the lead. If the name isn't familiar to many people today, that's understandable. Well into the 21st century there are likely not many living or who were old enough to have seen Cohan on stage or in this film. It's sure no one living would have seen the one other sound film that came two years after this - "Gambling." Apparently, it was so bad that Cohan wanted all prints of it destroyed right after it was made. It did have a premier and brief release and then disappeared. The Fox Film producers must have agreed that it was that bad.

Interestingly though, there is a review posted on the IMDb Web site for that film. It's by a long-time reviewer and movie buff who read the screenplay for the film, which survives, and the stage play script. From that reviewer's description of the plot, it sounds quite awful. It's also very interesting that two of the three silent films Cohan starred in also are lost. So, that leaves just two films in which one might see George M. Cohan. This one, and the 1917 silent film, "Seven Keys to Baldpate." Cohan wrote a play by that name, based on a novel by Earl Derr Biggers, of the same title. And, he then wrote the screenplay for the 1917 film in which he also starred. I have that novel, and the 1917 silent film as well as the three best of several sound picture remakes of the story.

While few people in the 21st century would know much, if anything, about the actor, George M. Cohan, people on Broadway and actors and those studying acting will know the name. But many outside of the stage may know his name associated with music. If for no other reason, some of his biggest hit songs and familiar tunes will ensure that the name Cohan will live on for ages.

Cohan was such a presence on the Broadway stage in the first three decade of the 20th century, that he was known then as "Mr. Broadway." He was a superb writer who also produced and starred in many of his works. He was the consummate entertainer - a musician and composer who could sing and dance as well. Cohan wrote, composed, staged, and starred in more than 30 Broadway musicals. He wrote more than 50 stage shows and 300 songs. Among the most memorable of his songs is the iconic, "Give My Regards to Broadway;" and his patriotic songs associated with World War I - "Over There," "The Yankee Doodle Boy," and "You're a Grand Old Flag."

In the 1917 silent film of "Baldpate," Cohan is particularly hammy. Actors in the silent films exaggerated a great deal for facial expressions and body gestures to better impart the unspoken words of the story. But stage actors were often even much more exaggerated so that those in the distance in the audiences could better make out everything that was going on. Well, Cohan's role as George Washington Magee in "Seven Keys to Baldpate" must be one of the hammiest performances on film - certainly of any that I have ever seen.

But now, these 15 years later, in his only surviving sound picture role, Cohan's ham is almost all gone. Here he plays dual roles. Theodore K. Blair is seeking his party's nomination to be president, which apparently would be a shoo into the White House. But, however intelligent, educated and right he may be for his party bigwigs, Blair has the personality of a wet noodle. Stumbling into the picture is a medicine show promoter, Peter Varney, Blair's exact look-alike.

Well, one can guess where this story will go, and it does. Along the way there's some mayhem, good comedy, and a little romance. The latter is courtesy of Claudette Colbert as Felicia Hammond. She wasn't interested at all in Blair, who carried a restrained torch for her. But, when the new Blair - ala, Peter Varney, emerges, her wall crumbles. There's a little fun and pun in that. Adding to the comedy and music of this comedy musical satire is Jimmy Durante in a very good role as Curly Cooney. And, among the supporting cast, Sidney Toler (known, for the very early series of Charlie Chan movies) is very good - and funny. Alan Mowbray is another in the supporting cast who will be familiar to many movie buffs.

The quality of this film is not very good. The outdoor shooting, especially has light problems. The screenplay had holes and is quite choppy. There's a huge continuity problem that is glaring to all. The acting is generally fair all around. It's not a real good movie, but a fair one. It is the only film in which to see George M. Cohan acting and singing.

Here are my favorite lines from this film.

Professor Aikenhead (Sidney Toler), "Blair lacks political charm. Blair has no flair for savoir faire."

Prof. Aikenhead, "Chivalry is all right, but a little Chevalier wouldn't hurt."

Felicia Hammond, "You see, I want love. I've heard very good reports about it.

Boss Jim Ronkton (George Barbier), "How does it look to you, Varney?" Peter Varney (Cohan), "I'm just trying to figure... which one of us looks the most alike."

If you saw Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, you've got the wrong idea. George M. Cohan was the smoothest song-and dance-man of them all, not the edgy fireball that Cagney portrayed. (No knock to Cagney; but he couldn't repress his natural energies) Watching Cohan, the original, is a delightful experience.

The plot is a fairly funny political satire. A politician with just what it takes to be president, but none of the "good American sex appeal" needed to get elected, finds an exact double: a medicine show charlatan. The medicine show man is hired to pinch hit for campaign purposes. His sidekick (Durante) comes along for the ride. They turn the medicine show into the convention. Durante does one of his famous "I won't talk on the radio" routines. It's, overall, light fare, but thoroughly enjoyable.

This film used to be shown on New York City local TV every four years on Election Night. Now, it seems to be virtually impossible to see. Too bad Universal (which owns the old Paramount films) doesn't dig it out of the vault and put it on Video.

THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT (Paramount, 1932), directed by Norman Taurog, stars Broadway legend George M. Cohan (l878-1942) playing a dual role in his talkie debut and, to the best of my knowledge, his only existing movie. As Theodore K. Blair, he is a serious-minded candidate who hopes to win the upcoming election as the next president of the United States. He is in love with Felicia Hammond (Claudette Colbert), who finds him rather dull. Later Blair's cronies who also find Blair to be dull and witless, come across a medicine show barker named Peter Varney who not presents himself in public as likable and full of fun, but happens to be the spitting image of Blair. In order to boost Blair's upcoming election win to the White House, they hire the entertainer to impersonate him, but the plan works out only too well when not only the public starts to favor Varney, but Felicia also, causing the jealous Blair to want to do away with this look-alike by hiring some tough sailors to kidnap Varney and take him unharmed to the Arctic circle.

Aside from this being a double showcase for George M. Cohan, it is Jimmy Durante (in his pre-baldness days) as "Curly" Cooney, Varney's partner and sidekick, who comes off best with his antics. It's possible the public felt the same way back in 1932. In the supporting cast are George Barbier as Jim Ronkson, the political boss; Sidney Toler as Professor Aikenhead; Louise MacIntosh as Senator Sara Scranton; and Jameson Thomas as Jerrido. Look fast in the opening of the story for Charles B. Middleton (the Emperor Ming of the "Flash Gordon" chaptered serials for Universal of the late 1930s) playing a picture frame portrait of Abraham Lincoln, separately along with Alan Mowbray as the George Washington, also in picture frame, coming to life, introducing themselves and bursting into song.

With the music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, the songs include: "This Country Needs a Man" (sung in rhyme talk by senators, tour guides and cast members); "Somebody Ought to Wave a Flag" (sung and tap danced by George M. Cohan in black-face); "Ah, Schnooza" (sung by Jimmy Durante); "Give Her a Kiss" (sung by "birds," "frogs" and voices of nature during Cohan's love scene in a motor boat with Colbert); "Convention/ Blair! Blair! Blair!" (sung by politicians and cast members); and "Give Her a Kiss" (sung by an unknown vocalist on a radio). The songs, with some of them being in rhyming dialog, are passable, but one wonders what tunes would have been used had Cohan written the score himself, as he did with his Broadway plays.

Those watching THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT will find this a rare treat in seeing the real George M. Cohan come to life on the screen. It's been out of the TV markets for quite some time now, and one could only hope it could resurface again, especially as an Election Day movie special on any one of the classic cable movie stations.

To learn more about the background, life and legend of George M. Cohan, watch the musical-biography, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (WB, 1942) starring James Cagney in his Academy Award winning performance. While portions of that movie are fictional, it's worthy entertainment. The story to "Yankee Doodle Dandy", however, never mentions of Cohan's association with motion pictures (he appeared in few silent ones), only his show business career on Broadway. After THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT Cohan got to appear in one final feature film in his career, GAMBLING (Fox, 1934), but as of this writing, that movie drama is believed "lost." As for THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT, it's a real curio and highly recommended. (****)

All the actors sparkle here, even Durante (who killed more than one MGM feature in his day) is a riot. Colbert is dazzling in every scene, even while bathing a dog. Cohan is fresh and fun, too bad he didn't make any other talkies. This production wreaks of Paramount, right down to the Lubitch touches of rhyming dialogue and animals delivering a musical number laced with sexual innuendo. In one instance the camera dissolves from the back side of a jackass to the keynote speaker of the Presidential convention; some things never change and it's still fresh!

Will Hays would have had a lot to say about this production if he could have gotten his hands on it.... :)