West Point Story The (1950)
West Point Story The (1950)
As opposed to a story about the United States Military Academy this musical romance comedy gave James Cagney a chance to return to the genre since his Best Actor Oscar performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) though one does get a sense of West Point’s storied history and tradition. Ray Heindorf’s Score received an Academy Award nomination. It was directed by Roy Del Ruth with a screenplay by Charles Hoffman John Monks Jr. and Irving Wallace that was based on Wallace’s story. Cagney plays ‘Bix’ Bixby a dance director that once worked for Cohan and Ziegfeld but because his argumentative personality has alienated everyone over the years with the exception of his girlfriend come fiancée Eve Dillon (Virginia Mayo) now works on cheap off-Broadway shows and gambles away everything he makes. Enter producer Harry Eberhart (Roland Winters) who despite his turbulent past with Bix is willing to give his old collaborator another chance on the annual show at the Academy. However his reasons are not altruistic: Eberhart wants Bix to help convince his talented nephew Tom Fletcher (Gordon MacRae) that he can make a lot more money in show business than as an officer in the service of his country. Since Eve had just become fed up enough with her fiancé’s gambling and reluctance to walk down the aisle with her to leave for Las Vegas near penniless Bix decides to accept Eberhart’s offer of $10000 to do the show.
Cagney plays the part as a hothead a near parity of his earlier tough guy roles that can’t keep from punching the producer or anyone else who causes him to boil over. Once at West Point he punches the beefy male officer that’s playing the female lead – Alan Hale Jr. as Bull Gilbert – in the show which causes the commandant (Frank Ferguson uncredited) to propose that Bix who’d been a decorated yet troublesome soldier during World War II enter the Academy as a plebe in hopes that he can be better controlled. This is just one of the many preposterous plot elements within this film others include leggy Mayo dancing on the stage and among the all-male cast without causing testosterone overload and a riot among the disciplined cadets and Doris Day as Jan Wilson a popular young actress singer dancer that has a past with Bix such that he can convince her to drop her studio’s promotional tour to play the princess role in the West Point show; he also hopes that she’ll help him to influence the talented singing Tom into leaving the Academy to sign with him for future productions. Naturally Jan falls for Tom when the two explore flirtation walk and the kissing rock together. Gene Nelson plays Hal Courtland a peer of Tom’s with a talent for dancing who gets injured in time for the finale so that Cagney can demonstrate more of his unique hoofing abilities. Jerome Cowan appears ever so briefly as a Hollywood studio head that’s frustrated by Jan’s activities and plans to marry Tom.
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