Posted on 12/23/2014 3:04:17 AM PST by iowamark
White Christmas (1954) has been part of family Christmases for as long as I can remember.
Bing Crosby’s voice is wonderful, but his middle-age-man-playing-hip hasn’t worn well over the years. Danny Kaye’s cracked-voice nervousness, his silly humor, and his surprisingly skillful dancing still work. Like all musicals, the film is thin on plot. It’s schmaltzy, light entertainment, a mid-century Hollywood specialty
Irving Berlin’s songs are catchy, sometimes clever. The title song had already won an Academy Award (for Holiday Inn, 1942). Wikipedia cites that other great authoritative text, Guinness, in support of the claim that it’s the best-settling single of all time, and NPR made it #2 on its list of Songs of the Century back in 1999, second to “Over the Rainbow.”
Though entirely a Christmas film, White Christmas has no references to Jesus or His birth. No character even alludes to Christ. The soldiers at the front in the opening scene don’t sing any Christmas carols, and the film’s score doesn’t have even a few bars of a carol either. It’s quite an astonishing achievement: an utterly Christless Christmas film.
In place of Jesus, we get a mash of mid-century Americanism. There snow, and Christmas cards, glistening treetops, and sleigh bells in the snow, and nostalgia for the Christmases I used to know. There are good, altruistic deeds, done out of loyalty to an old friend, and from beginning to end the film glows with the warmth of post-World War II patriotism. If there’s a faith here, it’s a gospel of small-town American and faith in the decency of the American military.
Whatever one thinks of those sentiments, they don’t constitute a gospel.
and nowhere is there any mention of kwaanza or ramadan or the aclu. no black friday crowd stampedes at walmart crushing a few people, who then demand compensation from the store for not protecting them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n3-UtakD3I
Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax66QU8pvtA
The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing - Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKxazgio2s
Count Your Blessings - Bing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-cXP1uDFpA
Choreography - Danny Kaye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKA0jcN8Mew
Love, You Didn’t do Right by Me - Rosemary Clooney
Just watched it on Netflix.
Also Christmas in Connecticut.
Me two,last night.didnt notice the missing Christ child. Sorry
Me too,last night.I didnt notice the missing Christ child. Sorry
And then on Christmas night, Bing Crosby sang White Christmas for the first time. In minutes people forgot the tragedy and their minds drifted into the beautiful lyrics reminiscing about a snow white Christmas.
Whether in a muddy foxhole in Europe or a modern family room in American suburbia, nothing says "the holidays are here" like White Christmas. Those words bring Christmas images to mind. A fire flickering on the hearth…the twinkle of lights on the tree…the aroma of sugar cookies….
The "white" in "Christmas" evokes so many seasonal memories. Snow evokes so many images that speak of the true meaning of the Christmas season.
Something about a baby in a manger echoes the purity of newly fallen snow. As it thaws and melts, it soaks the earth, preparing the ground for an explosion of new life each spring. It falls thousands of feet in silence and lands without a sound, reminding us that Christmas is a time to block out the noise of the world for at least a day. The uniqueness of each snowflake—scientists tell us no two snowflakes are alike—reminds us of the uniqueness of each person whom God's unique Son came to save...
I recently DVR’d “Holiday Inn”, with Fred Astaire, and they completely cut out the “blackface” routine.
They cut Mr. Bones! An outrage, I love that number with the red and black costumes.
In the same way a cigar is sometimes just a cigar, a movie is just a movie. It wasn't supposed to be a gospel.
I saw this movie as a young teenager. I never knew that Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were in it.
Rosemary Clooney ( Nick’s Aunt) and Vera Ellen.
Oops!!
Nick’s SISTER
George’s Aunt.
Damn, Rosemary and Vera still vexing me.
Both “White Christmas” and the “Little Drummer Boy” with David Bowie both are my favorite Bing Crosby songs.
Finally sat down to watch it on TV a few years ago. Dumb, IMO.
Until a few years ago, I didn’t really watch C in Conn. It took Big Valley reruns to appreciate Barbara Stanwyck which M3-TV got me into. Great movie.
I finally watched this movie a few years ago, I missed out.
It’s a love story with Christmas as the back drop.
It’s a great movie. The only musical number I don’t like is the one that begins, “Snow! Snow! Snow!” with three different actors singing the three iterations of the word.
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