1942 Directed by Mark Sandrich
Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her for his new dance partner after femme fatale Lila Dixon gives him the brush. Jim's supper club—Holiday Inn—is the setting for the chase by Hanover and manager Danny Reed. The music's the thing.
Bing Crosby Fred Astaire Marjorie Reynolds Virginia Dale Walter Abel Louise Beavers Irving Bacon Marek Windheim James Bell John Gallaudet Shelby Bacon Joan Arnold Edward Arnold Jr. Irving Berlin Ruth Clifford Oscar 'Dutch' Hendrian Douglas MacArthur Keith Richards Ronald R. Rondell Julia Faye Mildred Harris Bud Jamison Lynda Grey Bert Moorhouse
I understand why our professor is making us watch musicals with blackface, but I’m pretty sure we’d all much rather, you know, not do that. This was actually decent outside of the blackface sequence, but it just takes me out of it every time.
The other problem is that none of the characters are that likable, which is weird for a musical, especially one with Fred Astaire. Astaire plays a scumbag, and it doesn’t fit him at all. Outside of him, the other characters are barely noteworthy. Everything else is fairly well done, but I’m still not a huge fan.
This is actually only the second or third time I've seen this in full, and I think I liked it even less than the first time around. Soup without salt, really. I honestly have to wonder why it's such a beloved classic. I really can't attribute it to much else than nostalgia. Or is it because people just really really really like Christmas? You tell me. But in my view, there are so many problems with it...
Problem #1: This is only a personal opinion, but casting Bing Crosby in anything is just generally a bad idea. I don't usually criticize the way someone looks because A) it's not very nice and B) it's not their fault, but he's just…
I was lucky as a kid. When I was 8 or so my dad, who worked for RCA, brought home a 20 inch Black and White portable. I seem to remember it being sometime around my birthday, but not the exact day. It was made clear to me that this wasn’t ‘my TV’, but it was to be placed in my room. In reality, I think it was his defence against having to watch Lost In Space, Land of the Giants, My Mother the Car, and other such tripe that 8 year olds typically wanted to watch back in those days. Aside from allowing for friction free viewing of the aforementioned; the unintentional result was being exposed to ‘old movies’.…
BING CROSBY: Say, fellas, what did you think of the show?
ME: Wow, what a wonderful entertainment! Why, in that first half hour alone you sing that charming ode to laziness, Fred Astaire dances drunk, everything is so fun and witty.
BING CROSBY: Thought the people seemed to like the blackface routine.
ME: Um... you know what was really great? All of Astaire's inventive novelty routines. The dance with the firecrackers, or when you intentionally mess up his and Marjorie Reynolds' tempo in the Washington number.
BING CROSBY: Don't you think a blackface routine on St. Valentine's Day'd be novel?
ME: Like I was saying, this sure worked like gangbusters. Boy howdy. They sure don't make them like they used to. No sir! I have to go now. Goodbye!
You know what really takes the fun out of a fun, holiday romp?
White supremacy.
HOLIDAY INN is a personal childhood classic. It also contains possibly the most clear-cut, undeniably dehumanizing black face number in classic film. People, even today, will try to make excuses for other cinematic black face numbers (there has never been any excuse) as being "of the time," or simply an unthoughtful entertainment choice.
Numbers like Fred Astaire's tribute to Bojangles Bill Robinson in SWING TIME fall into this supposed grey area of "it was a different time" (it was always wrong, and so-called "unconscious white supremacy" has always been a lot more conscious than the allowances made to it admit).
The "Abraham" number in HOLIDAY…
not to be rude because he’s super talented but fred astaire kind of looks like a turtle
Ultimately, I think I would prefer a Holiday inn Express. Where breakfast is included and all the racism is omitted.
"I believe our number would go over a little better in blackface."
That's an actual quote from this ****ing swill. I wasn't enjoying myself all that much before this point, but that and the number proceeding it set me over the edge. I shut the thing off.
I give it a 1 and not a half for Bing Crosby and his amazing voice, and to hear the original rendition and Oscar nominated song we know and love so well, "White Christmas". I had no idea this movie is where the song originated from.
But I don't have to sit here with complacency for a time-butchered movie that has its standards and morals completely out of whack. I can't believe I spent $9 for the physical Blu-Ray. Suffice to say I will be selling it.
