I’m happy to be participating in Pure Entertainment Preservation Society‘s Happy Holidays Blogathon! I thought Holiday Inn would be fun since it features many different holidays all in one.
Holiday Inn may not be as well known as White Christmas, but the song “White Christmas” was first sang here. It also won the Oscar for Original Song!
Synopsis:
A crooner decides to leave show business to buy a farm. He soon decides to turn it into an inn that will only be open during the holidays. Things are going well until his old dancing partner tries to muscle in and steal yet another girl from him.
The Players:
Bing Crosby-
I feel so bad for Bing’s character in this movie. Fred Astaire steals the first girl and then tries to steal the second. Oh yeah, and his character has a nervous breakdown when he realizes farming isn’t as easy as he thought. Silly.
There are a lot of fun holiday songs, but watch out for the Abraham number. It’s not one of them. They usually cut this number out when it’s shown on TV because Bing and his partner {and actually everyone else working at the inn} are in blackface. I remember thinking how weird that it was the first time I saw something with blackface, but it’s just something they did once in a while at the time.
Fred Astaire-
Fred has a couple of cools dances in this movie. One of them is the dance that he does with firecrackers. The shoes he wore during this were auctioned off for $116,000 {worth of war bonds, must be something to do with the timing}.
Another notable dance is one where he is supposed to be drunk when he dances with Bing’s new partner. Supposedly drunk? Psych! He actually is. According to IMDB, he had “two drinks” of bourbon {not sure if that’s supposed to mean shots?} before the first take and then one before each take after that. They did a total of 7 takes {8 shots!} and the last take is used in the movie.
Why You Should Check it out:
This is a great chance to see a young Bing and Fred. They give great performances and it’s a really fun movie. The movie White Christmas was actually originally supposed to reunite these two as a sort of sequel/spin off, but it was never meant to be. Fred refused because he was retired at the time. I’m glad that didn’t work out because I’m a big fan of Danny Kaye in that movie.
This is also a great movie to watch this time of year! Enjoy!
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What a fun post. I’ve seen this movie, but after reading this, I’m gonna watch it again. I didn’t know about Fred’s assistance from the bourbon, haha! Thanks for the videos too! I love to watch Fred dance….
Happy Holidays!
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I had no idea re: Fred and the bourbon scene. I’ve got to watch this again right away, just to scrutinize it. 🙂
Haha, enjoy! 🙂