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justanothercinemaniac · 6 years

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Epic Movie (Re)Watch #235 - White Christmas

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: DVD

0) I know Christmas was a week ago but I’m just getting the chance to write this now so thanks for your patience everyone! :D

1) This was actually the THIRD film Bing Crosby sang “White Christmas” in after Holiday Inn and Blue Skies.

2) This film’s opening scene does well to establish the tone of the picture. It’s hopeful and sweet against a harsh backdrop, with showmen Bob Wallace and Phil Davis doing their best to bring some Christmas cheer to WW2 soldiers. It also establishes what kind of a man General Waverly is, which is important. The entire motivation for the film is helping this man out, this great men who all those soldiers care about so much. We understand why in this prologue.

3) The first singing of “White Christmas” also does well to play up the movie’s heart. It gives a sense of the sentiment and kindness that permeates the two hour run time.

4) Danny Kaye as Phil Davis.

Kaye is the ultimate scene stealer of the entire show and was actually the third choice for the role. He is incredibly funny, bringing a much welcome energy and charisma to the part. He’s crafty (manipulating Bob in a harmless yet devious way), clever, and has a great chemistry with Bing Crosby’s Bob Wallace. Of the main four stars, Kaye is definitely my favorite.

5) Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace.

The straight man of Wallace & Davis, Crosby still gets to show off a nice sense of humor in the film. He gets the chance to be serious, fun, kind, a little sad, a little mad, romantic, and pulls all of them off well as the film’s solid lead. Obviously his vocal chops were a big part of the character, but he’s Bing Crosby. I don’t think there was ever a doubt he could sing.

6) The montage which follows the prologue does well to establish the post war rise of Wallace & Davis in showbiz. It’s an important aspect in the film which could have really slowed done the part but the montage is sleek and fun so as not to bore the audience.

7) The conversation with Bob and Phil about how the latter wants the former to start dating so he can have some time alone really defines their relationship moving forward. We understand how good of friends they are that they can be candid but fun with each other. They joke, they tell it like it is, they play, and I just really like that.

Betty: “Benny’s got a job in Alaska. He’s been out of the country for three months.”

9) The relationship between Betty and Judy is wonderfully defined - not by their song - but by their conversation before the song. We understand how this relationship works much as the conversation with Bob & Phil established their friendship. We get how Judy sees Betty and vice versa and it’s great. A nice female friendship where there’s no bickering over a guy, a rare treat in the 1950s. Although I will say I never bought Vera-Ellen as being the younger sister here.

10) Rosemary Clooney as Betty.

Clooney is an extremely kind, likable, charismatic, and endearing performer who really elevates the role of Betty. She has a very nice chemistry with Crosby and is just so damn interesting. Which is good, because on paper Betty is freaking awful. I’ll talk about this more, but we get a sense of what’s to come with her holier-than-thou attitude when Bob begins talking about “angles”. Basically I love Rosemary Clooney in this movie, but I hate how Betty is written. It’s frustrating to say the least.

11) “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing”

This early number shows off one of the film’s weakest and strongest elements simultaneously. Most if not all of the numbers do nothing to actually motivate the plot forward, instead just filling up the two hour run time. HOWEVER they’re almost all so damn entertaining it’s hard to actually find fault with this. You’re too busy enjoying the show!

12) According to IMDb:

According to Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye's "Sisters" performance was not originally in the script. They were clowning around on the set, and director Michael Curtiz thought it was so funny that he decided to film it. In the scene, Crosby's laughs are genuine and unscripted, as he was unable to hold a straight face due to Kaye's comedic dancing. Clooney said the filmmakers had a better take where Crosby didn't laugh, but when they ran them both, people liked the laughing version better.

13) Ah, the only person of color in the movie. And they’re servers.

14) “Snow”

Snow is probably the second most Christmas-y song in the film after “White Christmas”. It shows off the four leads unity well (although Vera-Ellen didn’t do her own singing) and is one of my favorite numbers in the whole film. It’s charming and sweet, filled with winter charm and spirit. I dig it.

15) I like that the greenness of Vermont is a detail but not a focus of the film. Yes it’s called “White Christmas” and yes snow does bring in business to the hotel, but the conflict isn’t about trying to get it to snow it’s about trying to make an old friend happy for the holidays.

16) Dean Jagger General Waverly.

Waverly is the personification of the movie’s heart and sincerity, while also being my favorite character in the movie. You see how caring he is through subtle ways. He’s not one to express his emotions or his heart but you can see it clearly in Jagger’s performance. He is able to be commanding when necessary but more than that he is a kind, sometimes sad, honest man. I love it.

17) This was always one of my favorite gags in the film.

Bob [after hearing over the phone how much something will cost]: “Wow.”

Phil […]: “How much is wow?”

Bob: “Right in between in between, ‘ouch,’ and, ‘poing.’”

Phil: “Wow.”

18) The Minstrel Number.

This is one of the longest, most pointless numbers in the entire film. There is a great amount of entertainment and production value but it adds nothing to the story. While it is probably the strongest out of the three “performances” (the rehearsals Wallace & Davis are holding at the hotel), like the other two you can cut it and lose absolutely nothing from the film.

19) According to Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby improvised almost all of his dialogue in the scene where she meets him in the kitchen. You can tell and I mean that as a compliment. There is an honest spontaneity to the conversation which pulls you in because it’s so interesting.

20) “Count Your Blessings” is a wonderfully kind and moving number which has you invested in the romance between Bob/Betty quickly. Too bad the writing with Betty has me totally DISINTERESTED in them actually ending up together. But more on that later…

21) The scene where we learn that Waverly wanted back in the army but gets rejected not only develops him as a character (his motivations, his desires) but the heart of the film as well.

22) I mentioned that “The Minstrel Number” was one of three totally pointless numbers in the movie. “Choreography” is by far the worst offending of those three. It is not nearly entertaining enough to warrant its run time and serves as close to offending filler. Honestly just cut it.

23) Ah yes, what I’ve been hinting at this whole recap. The bane of my existence, the thing I hate in this movie above all else: freaking Betty becoming such a passive aggressive shit head! If you haven’t seen this movie let me recap:

Betty hears some BS about Bob out of context which paints him in a negative light

She takes this half-assed rumor as fact and immediately accepts it

She never ONCE actually talks to Bob about it

And then she just LEAVES! She runs away WITHOUT ACTUALLY SAYING WHY SHE’S UPSET!

BOB LITERALLY DOES NOTHING WRONG DURING THIS ENTIRE FILM, BETTY NEVER APOLOGIZES, AND BOB SPENDS THE REST OF THE MOVIE FEELING BAD OVER SOMETHING HE DIDN’T ACTUALLY DO!

It is infuriating and I hate Betty because of it. I hate her I hate her I hate her! BUT Rosemary Clooney is so damn charming I love her performance in the movie! But on paper alone Betty is being a passive aggressive shit who Bob devotes way too much energy into trying to appease her. IT’S NOT WORTH IT BOB! Of all the contrived pieces of bullshit in an attempt to add conflict in their relationship, this is the most painfully obvious piece of crap I have ever seen. I love this movie but dear god I freaking hate Betty in the last act.

24) I love that Judy basically cons Phil into an engagement with her and how freaked out he gets by it. Suddenly the dynamic of their relationship just shifted and it’s glorious.

25) A fine piece of 50s BS sexist writing: suddenly Judy is a weeping hysterical woman because her plan didn’t go the way she thought. Which literally matches with NOTHING we learned about her before this moment.

26) “Love You Didn’t Do Right By Me”

First of all, this is such a melodramatic and shitty move. “Love You Didn’t Do Right By Me?” SERIOUSLY!? Maybe it would’ve IF YOU TALKED TO BOB! I know that Betty asks to sing a different song when Bob shows up but clearly the filmmakers are trying something with this and I just, ugh, I HATE IT!

Second of all, the number is actually a great tune and a wonderful showcase for Rosemary Clooney’s talents. It’s her only solo in the entire film and she absolutely nails it. So again, a great example of how I love Clooney but I hate Betty in this film.

27) Phil keeping Waverly away from the TV set is an excellent showcase for Danny Kaye’s comedic talents. He may not be Charlie Chaplin but he’s damn good.

28) “What Can You Do with a General?”

Leonard Maltin called this composer Irving Berlin’s least memorable tune. I disagree and in fact really enjoy it. It’s got a sense of cleverness to it. It’s sweet, a nice tune. A little slow but it gets stuck in your head. So in short: I disagree with Leonard Maltin.

29) The look on Waverly’s face is everything this film was about. EVERYTHING.

30) “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army” is a fun and fitting near-climactic musical number for the film. It’s fun, funny, representative of the joy and humor that Wallace & Davis wanted to bring Waverly. Also, according to IMDb:

For the song "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army", there is the lyric, "Jolson, Hope And Benny all for free". This is a reference to three wartime entertainers: Al Jolson, Bob Hopeand Jack Benny. The original words were "Crosby, Hope and Jolson all for free", but the lyric was changed because with Bing Crosby in the cast the original lyric would break the fourth wall.

31) While obvious from the film’s title, the snow fall at the end is a sweet way to wrap the story up. It’s not made into a big deal, they just enjoy it’s beauty. This leads into the final performance of “White Christmas” which acts as a poignant and fitting finale to the story.

White Christmas is a holiday classic with a great heart and sense of fun. The cast knock it out of the park and the music is great, and although I may have issues with some character writing (freaking Betty) I still love the film as a whole. I definitely recommend it.

#White Christmas #Bing Crosby #Rosemary Clooney #Danny Kaye #Vera Ellen #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #The More You Know #Movie #Film #GIF

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amplesalty · 4 years

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Christmas 2019: Day 12 - White Christmas (1954)

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Twelve singing soldiers!

So, Christmas has passed for another year and I have one movie remaining. Unfortunately, this is the closest I’m getting a White Christmas, in reality it was a relatively sunny affair this year, I only recall a couple of times that we had snow on Christmas Day in my life.

This was originally meant as a joke during last years viewing of the animated Mariah Carey movie ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ but why not, it’s nice to have an earlier entry amongst all the post 2000 media that these Christmas marathons tend to throw up. Evidently even back then I had envisioned this whole musical motif that has run throughout the month.

The song White Christmas actually had its origins in an earlier film ‘Holiday Inn’ back in 1942, starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, which led to it winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song before going on to be the best-selling single of all time. The Crosby version I find a little bland though and it moves at a glacial pace. Maybe it’s just because I’m more used to it due to its use in Home Alone but The Drifters version is a bit more interesting, probably down to the ‘doo wop’ style.

Crosby had quite an extensive on-screen career, matched (if not exceeded) by his work in the music studio given his 100+ albums. Granted about 10% of that are from post-humous compilation releases but it seems pretty crazy to me that someone could have so many albums., he almost seemed to be putting them out at the rate of one a month at times. I feel like I don’t know where to start when I get into a new artist and they have 5+ albums, nevermind 100. Though, in looking at this, Buckethead is infinitely worse due to his ‘Pike Series’ of mini-albums of which there are 275, leading to a total of 306 total albums when combined with his other work.

I know I mentioned it in that post and have probably made reference to it before but in regards to Crosby’s treatment of his kids, this seems to stem from the memoirs of his son Gary in which he talks about the cruel treatment he and his brothers received. His brother Philip disputed these claims, whereas other brothers Dennis and Lindsay seemed to lean more towards Gary’s side of the story. Most of it seems to boil down to Bing being one to use corporal punishment, perhaps a little too heavy handedly at times, rather than him doing it just for shits and giggles. Whilst we’re talking family though, Denise Crosby is Bing’s granddaughter, she of Star Trek and Pet Sematary fame.

The movie starts out with its own form of violence, taking place during Christmas Eve 1944 as Cpt. Bob Wallace (Crosby) and Private First Class Phil Davis (Danny Kaye) are entertaining their troupe. This includes a big finale as a toast to their departing commanding office, Major General Thomas Waverly. It certainly creates some unique visuals, the performers vibrant Santa outfits standing out amongst the otherwise gray/green/brown looks of fellow soilders and the surrounding area. Their background of an idealic landscape of snow topped houses stands in stark contrast to the actual background of a bombed out town where the only houses left are but crumbling remains.

All this singing and dancing seems to have attracted the wrong attention though as a bombing run ensues and Davis only narrowly manages to drag Wallace out of the way of a falling building. When Wallace thanks Davis and offers to repay the favour sometime, Davis immediately asks to perform with Wallace when they get back home, to which Wallace reluctantly agrees. They’re a hit though as we montage through the end of the war, them returning home to some initial success before growing to the point where they’re producing a hit musical.

Shortly before Christmas, they receive a letter from one of their old army buddies suggesting they check out his sisters new act. There appears to be some initial attraction between Wallace and one of the sisters, Betty, which Davis and the other sister Judy are keen to fan the flames of. But first they have to deal with the sisters being outlaws of sorts when their landlord comes knocking with a bill for a burnt rug for which he holds them responsible.

He’s even roped in the local sheriff to come arrest them so it’s up to Wallace and Davis to form a distraction whilst the two ladies pack up and bundle themselves into a waiting taxi. This leads to them performing their own version of their ‘Sisters’ number involving hitched up pants and fancy father fans. It makes for an entertaining, campy performance, albeit one that is a bit repetitive having already heard the song in full minutes earlier. Betty and Judy perform it again later on as well, it would have been nice if they’d given them another song or two on their own.

This initial courting period is fun, it plays up this dynamic between Wallace and Davis where Wallace is a little more curmudgeonly and Davis is trying to lighten him up a bit. It looks like it would be shortlived as the guys are heading to New York and the gals to Vermont, but Wallace is talked into staying on and all four head to Vermont and even sing a quartet about how much they’re looking forward to the snow.

Only, they find there isn’t any snow and the hotel that booked the sisters is empty, to the point that they offer to pay the ladies half their fee to make up for the cancellation. By happy coincidence though, the hotel is run by the boys old CO Waverly. It’s amusing to see these big shot producer types still stop dead in their tracks in fear/respect of the guy. Wallace gets the idea of bringing their whole show up for the holidays in order to try and get some guests through the door.

It takes on a more personal edge though when Waverly shares with Wallace that he’s applied to go back in the army. Only, his contact in Washington doesn’t even register that Waverly might have been serious, playing it off as a joke that Waverly is enjoying a life of luxury in his retirement whilst everyone else has to suffer through work. Either that or he’s being too polite to reject him outright. Sensing Waverly’s feeling of being forgotten and useless in his advancing years, Wallace sets out to invite all the old gang to come up on Xmas Eve to show their appreciation.

This does all lead to a sweet, It’s a Wonderful Life-esque finale which I surprisingly didn’t feel emotional about. Probably down to Waverly not being the central focus of the movie, most of the second half is dedicated to the will they, wont they romance of Wallace and Betty. There’s a big misunderstanding when Wallace arranges a TV spot to invite all of his army buddies to the hotel but Betty thinks this is being done only as a form of free promotion for Wallace and Davis’ stage show.

You see quite a few musical numbers from the show throughout the second half of the movie as well, often under the guise of rehearsals. A lot of that is dancing which, whilst technically very well done, isn’t particularly interesting to me. There is one avant garde looking number where Davis and accompanying girls are clad in all purple and he’s singing about how old forms of dance are being replaced by modern ‘choreography’. They’re doing all these weird interprative dance looking poses and in one line he sings ‘through the air they keep flying, like a duck that is dying’.

There’s another song which involves a character called ‘Mr Bones’ who seems to tell terrible jokes in a very self aware manner so between that and the very meta choreography song, I have no clue how this show works structurally. Frankly, I’m just relieved this wasn’t a horrible black-face affair that I was worried about when it started as the ‘minstrel number’.

I preferred the songs that involved Davis more, Crosby is a bit dry on his own and Davis just injects a bit more fun into proceedings. There’s a bit of campiness to Danny Kaye’s performance, very exaggerated body and facial language at times. He’s like that even off stage, very eager to try and push Wallace and Betty together but when Judy proposes a mock engagement between the two of them to try and spur the other two on, he’s like a rabbit in headlights. I mentioned it earlier as well but the playful bickering between Wallace and Davis is entertaining, Davis more than willing to bring up the fact that he saved Wallace’s life every chance he gets.

It seems apt that music of this era is now very evocative of playing Fallout given that Danny Kaye was responsible for one of the songs that featured in both 3 and 4; Civilization. There’s a very tongue in cheek tone to that song which seems to be representative of him in general going from this movie as well.

Between this movie, the aforementioned Mariah one, Rudolph, Frosty and even The Christmas Shoes, we certainly have stumbled upon a strange trope of song based film adaptation. Perhaps this might turn into a running segment but that’s a story for another year...

#Christmas 2019 #White Christmas

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