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On 30 Dec 2004 13:09:37 -0500, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:
I'm even weaker on movies than I am on popular music. Did the movie
make another cycle around 1949 (perhaps prompting the re-release and
the Tubb recording)? I remember seeing the movie as a kid, but I was
born in 1943, so I know I didn't see the first release, but by 1949 I
would have been old enough to really watch a movie and at that age I
probably wouldn't have been bored with White Christmas. Today I would. snip
The movie for which the song was written in 1940 was "Holiday Inn," a
1942 Paramount vehicle designed for Crosby and Fred Astaire, both on
loan from MGM, because Arthur Freed at MGM hadn't the slightest idea
how to use them. Of course, after big hits at Paramount, Columbia and
RKO, Freed got over his cluelessness and brought them back to Culver
City. The hit, "White Christmas," wasn't even considered a hit by
either Berlin or Crosby, and the demand for a single was immediate. A
"sort-of" remake of Holiday Inn was released under the title "White
Christmas" in 1954, starring Crosby with Danny Kaye, Rosie Clooney and
Vera-Ellen. The plot was even more frothy, but Paramount decided that
the "White Christmas" franchise merited the first release done in
their new VistaVision wide screen format with the usual Technicolor
glitz provided by Natalie Kalmus, one of Hollywood's first female
industry big shots. Although the remake fell short of the plot line
of the original, and Bing was quite obviously much too old for the
part, it's been a perennial favorite ever since.
So, if the "White Christmas" you saw was black and white and had the
usual optical sound track, it was really "Holiday Inn." If it was in
wide screen Technicolor with a great Weco mono sound track, it was
"White Christmas."
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