I’m not much of a Christmas person. It isn’t like I actively dislike the holiday. It isn’t like I have traumatic childhood memories associated with it. I actually like some music associated with the holiday, even some of the traditional fare. What I don’t like is the saccharine sweetness of so much Christmas entertainment. Much of it scans as quite cynical to me. I’m not sure why I was surprised that is how 1954’s White Christmas felt to me now that I have finally seen it.
Funny how I never even thought the movie would have a plot. I never bothered to watch it before, because I thought it would be more or less a plotless collection of early music videos. But then I didn’t realize Singin’ in the Rain had an actual plot until finally catching that, so that raised hopes I could be wrong.
Nope, I was right the first time. Although there are four main characters here, and they go from sets that are supposed to be Florida to sets that are supposed to be Vermont, I wouldn’t go so far as to describe the mild conflicts and situations here as “plot”.
Curiously, there’s even less Christmas here than there is plot. The holiday is largely AWOL except for bookending scenes where the title track is performed. In the opening, Bing Crosby is singing it while he and fellow solider Danny Kaye entertain distraught troops on a Christmas Eve in WWII in bombed-out ruins somewhere in Europe. These troops adore the General they report to (Dean Jagger). We’ll get back to him.
After the war, Crosby and Kaye become a huge success on the musical stage. On their last night in Florida, they are deceived into seeing an act comprising two sisters of a military buddy.
The sisters are played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. They perform a song called “Sisters” that grated on my nerves, and hard. The song isn’t any better a few minutes later, when we see Crosby and Kaye perform a high-camp lip-sync to the same track. And the track will still not be any good when we later see the duo perform it in Vermont. The only positive thing I can say about this number is the tune isn’t memorable, lest it borrow into my brain and drive me to madness.
Like Crosby and Kaye, Clooney and Vera-Ellen will be departing Florida the next day. Whereas the guys are off to NYC, the girls’ destination is Vermont. Kaye, determined to play matchmaker between Crosby and Clooney, concocts various schemes to ensure everybody ends up in Vermont. On the train, the four find themselves in a small booth, singing a hyper and asinine song about snow which I suspect the writers of which had inhaled long lines of.
I was mildly surprised to see they are not greeted by the white stuff (snow, not cocaine) when they step off the train in Vermont. Turns out the locals are having an unseasonably warm winter there. It doesn’t even appear to be necessary to wear a coat. I didn’t realize climate change was a potential issue that long ago.
No snow equates to no guests at the inn where the sisters had been hired to perform. Then it turns out Jagger owns the place and, gosh darn it, the four decide to take over his barn and put on a show in his honor.
But they don’t just stage any lil’ ol’ show. No, Crosby and Kaye bring up everybody who works on, and everything used in, their massive New York revue. It is explained their stage show is always shut down during the holidays, so I’m sure everybody was thrilled to suddenly ditch their Christmas vacation plans, which likely included visiting rarely seen friends and family, just to do their job in a less-than-ideal venue out in podunk. Later, Cosby will also convince a NYC television station to do a live simulcast of the event. While he’s at it, I’m surprised he didn’t just bus in the entire population of that city.
We never see the complete show performed, but we see full dress rehearsals of a few numbers. What we are shown is so bizarre that I can’t imagine how they were drawing crowds in the Big Apple.
Before each number, we see the title on a blackboard. I think my eyes almost shot out of my head when the board announces a minstrel show. Fortunately, nobody is in blackface. Instead, there is something jaw-droppingly weird, and this is whatever that thing is supposed to be in the background behind Vera-Ellen. To me, it most looked like a giant fountain of blood frozen in mid-spray. I like to imagine the person who designed that being taken to task and them trying to explain, “But you said it was a menstrual show…”
I am a bit confused as to why White Christmas is so popular. It can’t just be for the title song, which had already been used in Holiday Inn twelve years earlier. It can’t be the quality of the film itself, which is a curiously elaborately staged shambles, despite being helmed by the director of Casablanca. Perhaps it just comes down to nostalgia. If that’s the case, then I wonder if that popularity will fade considerably over time.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen
Watched on blu-ray