Christmas brings the annual opportunity for Mr. Hall to tell me that White Christmas isn't as good as Holiday Inn.



Not that either film is without its flaws, but I kind of agree. Holiday Inn holds together better as a movie. And I do like Holiday Inn. I think it's a good movie and I look forward to watching it each year. But the fact of the matter is, I also like White Christmas. I know it has problems, a very tenuous reason for being called White Christmas and in some spots kind of doesn't work.

Unrelated picture of the "Choreography" number.
IMDb: A successful song-and-dance team become romantically involved with a sister act and team up to save the failing Vermont inn of their former commanding general.

It's a nice movie! With a nice overall plot, fun song-and-dance numbers, talented performers, and it was filmed in stunning VistaVision!


I don't know what VistaVision is, but there are pretty
colors in this movie! Lots of 'em!But as I mentioned, there are a few parts that kind of don't work. Not in a hugely upsetting, "I want to stop watching this movie!" kind of way, but still -- just a trifle jarring. And I think it's mainly due to some of the back-stage issues the film faced.

It was originally conceived as a sequel of sorts to Holiday Inn and would have starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire...


...but then Fred Astaire decided, for whatever reason, he didn't want to do the movie. (There were rumors that he was tired of doing movies where he loses the girl to Bing, but I think that's highly unlikely -- after all, in both Holiday Inn and White Christmas, there are two main girls. No, I think it's far more likely, what with having retired once already at this point, that he was just not enthused about working. Not to mention that his wife passed away around this time. Don't be too sad for Fred, though; at age 81 he married again -- to a 36-year old lady jockey.)

Then, Bing Crosby's first wife also passed away and the project was shelved... for a couple years, and then Bing decided he was ready to do the film. Fred was still out, and I want to say I read that they initially considered replacing him with Donald O'Connor (a sound dancer, sure, but he was like twenty-something years old, which would have made Bing's rapidly advancing years even more obvious and weird). But then, I think Donald O'Connor got sick...and they finally wound up with Danny Kaye.

This might be why this is a kind of atypical role for Danny Kaye. The majority of Danny Kaye's films are about Danny Kaye being mistaken for someone else or being forced to impersonate another person (see: The Inspector General, The Court Jester, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, On the Double, etc. etc. etc.). That was his shtick. He does lots of different voices and accents and mugs and sings funny. Oh, in this movie he still has the opportunity to sing funny and mug in this movie, but I don't think, at any point, he's forced to impersonate someone else.

No, the most confusing parts of this movie are the parts that have this guy:



...A guy who vaguely visually suggests Danny Kaye, and performs a number of dance routines with the gal in this picture (Vera Ellen, i.e. Danny's leading lady)... and has no actual character in the film. As a first time viewer of this film, I have a feeling I would be saying.... "Who is this guy? Why is he dancing the lead in all of these musical numbers instead of one of our two lead males?"
And it's a good question, especially since Danny Kaye proves in an earlier dance number ("The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing") that he's not incapable of dancing -- even complicated dancing. My guess is that there was just a lot more dancing in this movie than Danny wanted to commit to (I mean, if one has to be practicing like ten dance routines, when can one find the time to golf? Right, Bill Murray?) Dance numbers are for people like Fred Astaire, who enjoy devoting all that time to rehearsing.
"I hate movies!" -- Bill MurrayIn a nutshell, then the majority of the parts of this film that don't work are due to the fact that it was just plain written for someone else. There are even references in the dialogue to songs that wound up being cut out of the final version. But, like I said, the overall story about them helping their old commanding officer from the Army is really nice, and it is a visually beautiful film with excellent musical numbers (except for the "Choreography!" number. Not a fan of that one! Competently performed, but it's just not a very fun number. It kind of felt like they just put that one in because they needed X number of singing/dancing scenes, and somebody bugged Irving Berlin until he pulled one out of his scratch pile. "Okay, okay... I've got this other song, this 'Choreography' thing -- we could put that in. But it doesn't really have anything to do with Christmas...." "It doesn't matter! Paramount said we needed seven musical numbers, and we've only got five! We'll use it, and what else have you got?" "Well, we're already re-using White Christmas from Holiday Inn... How about re-using 'Abraham'?" "PERFECT!")


In the end... do this movie's flaws outweigh its virtues? Not in the least! I think this is a fun, charming, emotionally-rewarding movie with lots of fun singing and dancing. If you like Christmas, and human beings, I have no idea why you wouldn't like this film.
Even if Holiday Inn is slightly better put-together.
**Note: This year, I watched the 50th anniversary "Diamond" edition Blu Ray -- and I have to say, the colors are corrected magnificently and there isn't a "bleeding" effect on the blue colors that I noticed in the old, uncorrected DVD version. So, if you can pick up the Diamond edition, do so!**
RECOMMENDED.