Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

MartinHafer The famous Broadway song and dance man, George M. Cohan, only made a couple films. So, seeing "The Phantom President" is one of the only ways you can see him acting. George plays two different people in this story. Theodore K. Blair is a rich guy who's in line to possibly be the next President. However, he's not very good at public speaking. But, when his campaign folks find a very charismatic medicine show man who looks EXACTLY like Blair, they get Peeter Varney to impersonate Blair on the campaign trail. Naturally, they want to keep this sort of thing out of the papers and don't even tell Varney's buddy (Jimmy Durante) nor Blair's girlfriend (Claudette Colbert)...which leads to all sorts of mix-ups. While Varney's help should be much appreciated, through the course of the film you start to see what sort of a skunk Blair is. In fact, instead of rewarding Varney for helping him become President, Blair plans on sending him off to a hellish reward near the North Pole! What's to become of this evil plan? See the film.While the music seemed a bit corny to me, I did enjoy the script and the film ended on a marvelous note. It's surprising, then, that this movie was a huge money-loser back in the day. I can't see why except, perhaps, by the 1930s, Cohan was a bit of a has-been...a relic of the past who was popular about twenty years earlier. Regardless, it's well worth your time and quite clever.

bkoganbing 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.

John Esche Light weight but winning political satire even in its day, the big news in this well reviewed Rodgers and Hart not-quite-musical (there are just four main musical sequences - the best known song is "Give Her A Kiss") was George M. Cohan's first appearance in a talkie - he would make but one more in 1934 (GAMBLING), three years before Cohan returned to Broadway with Rodgers & Hart in their 1937 hit I'D RATHER BE RIGHT, playing a real president - FDR.Playing the dual role here of a candidate and his more likable double, Cohan more than justified the hype, and ably assisted by the always wonderful Claudette Colbert as the candidate's girlfriend (shades of THE PRISONER OF ZENDA) and Jimmy Durante who almost steals the film as the nice Cohan's manager (catch Durante in MGM's 1934 STUDENT TOUR playing a crew coach named Merman in an in joke!), Cohan makes this a must-see in any year. In an election year like this one, we can only wish the finale were reality rather than a gentle satire of pandering to public perceptions.The pleasant surprises don't stop with the leads however. Watch the singing portraits of past presidents in the opening for Alan Mowbray as George Washington and later, Sidney (Charlie Chan) Toler's appearance as a political boss - all smiles but as rooted in what "works" as any current campaign manager - is a joy to behold.If you've seen Jimmy Cagney dancing to an Oscar as Cohan in the World War II YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (a decade after this effort), take a look at Cohan doing the original steps (in black-face, yet in an "on stage" number) and you'll wonder if Cagney didn't study this film specifically. In the great legacy of film musicals, THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT is probably little more than a footnote, but it's a very enjoyable, important one.

metaphor-2 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.