Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Irving Berlin and the unheralded Mark Sandrich, all in one magical package
If Christmas movies can be considered a genre - and there are enough them now that we can make the declaration - they must have an Eve, and I don't mean the Christmas kind; a womb from which their line began.
That progenitor is Holiday Inn (think of the product placement a modern version would feature!), the 1942 classic for which Bing Crosby ditched his then other film partner, Bob Hope, for a comic foil with a lighter touch, the inimitable Fred Astaire.
While Holiday Inn is not exclusively a Christmas movie - more a catch-all holiday film - that's how it quickly became categorized, much to the chagrin, probably, of story originator/composer Irving Berlin and the powers at Paramount, who no doubt foresaw a perennial that would spring up again and again at any major occasion.
It's largely due to the inclusion of Berlin's White Christmas, which went on, of course, to become the best-selling recording of all time. Hear Crosby croon it in the movie and you'll know exactly why; it's clear his rendering would have achieved that status even if it had been released in an era devoid of home-yearning servicemen. Crosby's pipes were at their peak at that point, and his languid baritone makes the notes float like snowflakes. It's a perfect match of song and singer.
And it comes, at that, early on the film, the script eager to move on to all of those other holidays where the real fun lies: Crosby, with playful deadpan, ruining Astaire's demure Washington's Birthday number...Fred flashing his feet while flinging firecrackers on the Fourth of July...Bing waxing romantic to Berlin's previous holiday mega hit, Put On Your Easter Bonnet.
Bing and Fred play the male bookends of a traveling trio, caught up in a tug of war over the female factor of the act. Crosby loses, and consoles himself by kyboshing his crooning for the Connecticut countryside, where he sets up an inn open only on holidays. All is well until Astaire appears and begins to put the whirling, twirling moves on Crosby's new paramour, sounding the bell for Round Two of their battle.
Holiday Inn was directed by the highly under appreciated Mark Sandrich, responsible for the best Astaire-Rogers collaborations. In true Sandrich fashion, it's charming, cheeky, cosmopolitan and swingin'.
Highlights include numbers where the boys parody each other's talents, some fine comic acting by Crosby (a one-man Christmas dinner, for example, where he says to the turkey, "You're better off than I am"), and a drunken dance by Astaire that is one of the unheralded gems of his oeuvre.
Long before It's A Wonderful Life, there was a wonderful movie - and its name was Holiday Inn.
