Holiday Inn isn’t just one of the all-time great Christmas films, it’s also one of the all-time great movie musicals. With an astonishingly good score, even for Irving Berlin, and the perfect star combination of the affable Bing Crosby and perfectionist Fred Astaire, Holiday Inn conjures up the simplest of concepts to craft a compulsively watchable holiday delight.
The plot sets up with head-whipping speed when Jim Hardy (Bing) breaks the bad news to his friend and partner Ted Hanover (Fred) that he’s breaking up their successful act so he can marry part three of their song and dance trio, Lila Dixon (a superbly caustic Virginia Dale). Jim’s plan is to whisk Lila away from the grind of the show-biz rat race and retire to Connecticut where life as a leisurely and lazy gentleman farmer awaits.
As he does with most everything in life, Jim takes the news rather well when Lila changes her mind. More in love with show business than any man, Lila announces that she’s fallen for Ted … and so with little more than a “Sorry, old man. No hard feelings,” Jim flicks his wrist, forgives them both, and heads off to the country where another harsh dose of reality awaits.
Using a very funny montage, veteran musical director Mark Sandrich (he directed five of the ten immortal Astaire-Rogers musicals) crushes every naive notion Jim had that farming’s anything other than damn hard work, which leaves the retired singer in quite the pickle: he owns a farm with an overdue mortgage, but he’s too lazy to work it.
What’s a fella to do?
Jim hatches a brilliant scheme (the story idea that won Irving Berlin an Oscar nomination for Best Story — though the actual screenplay was written by Elmer Rice). He’ll open an inn, but one that won’t require a whole lot of work. Rather than being open year-round, it will be a “Holiday Inn,” only open on holidays and sure to lure plenty of paying customers with the promise of quality holiday-themed floor shows.
Using this lighter than air concept, the film does dutifully cover all the holidays (even Washington’s Birthday with a memorably funny scene where a jealous Bing screws up Fred’s romantic dance routine), but in its heart and soul Holiday Inn is a Christmas film, and more importantly, the one that introduced the timeless (and Academy Award winning) White Christmas.
[youtube q7KvJSmPvkI nolink]
—
Other highlights include a rousing, militaristic and patriotic 4th of July show topped off with a smashing number [see above] with the incredibly inventive Astaire saying it with firecrackers. Legend has it that in trying to achieve the “improvised” look for this number, Astaire rehearsed himself down to a mere 85 pounds. Look also for Astaire’s lovely version of Easter Parade (a preview of the film of the same name he’d come out of retirement to do years later), and Bing’s tribute to Abraham Lincoln, which manages to be both catchy and refreshingly offensive to the preciously politically correct at the same time.
Thanks to the lost art of perfect pacing and a humorous plot-turn involving the lovely Marjorie Reynolds in the film’s second live triangle, this story hums through its 100 minutes with the great Walter Abel uncharacteristically stealing every scene he’s in as a mercenary put upon agent.
The impact of Holiday Inn is hard to measure. White Christmas would go on to be one of the biggest selling records of all time, Crosby would forever more be identified as Mr. Christmas, a chain of Holiday Inn hotels would spread across America, and just twelve years later an inferior sequel/remake would be one of the biggest hits of 1954.
In 1946, Astaire, Crosby, Berlin and director Mark Sandrich would re-team for Blue Skies, in an attempt to recapture Holiday Inn’s lightening in a bottle that comes a helluva lot closer than the near-awful White Christmas. Sadly, that would be the last time Fred and Bing worked together. Tragically, after nine days of shooting, Sandrich died of a heart attack at the age of 44.
Read the full countdown here.
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.