White Christmas Review

• 25th Dec 2013

A true staple for Christmas that sits comfortably beside the likes of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), A Christmas Story (1984) (a film most popular in the USA) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) it puts such dross as Deck the Halls in the shade. This still remains cosy fireside Xmas guilty pleasure. The story is the oft told backstage musical with a Christmas slant but is more winter stock than summer stock. The film opens on Christmas Eve in 1944 with US soldiers on the western front celebrating on the eve before they are due to go to battle. Stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sing ‘White Christmas’ to the troops leading the troops in celebrating their favourite officer, General Waverly (Dean Jagger) being retired off; they sing ‘The Old Man’ in tribute to him. Two years later Crosby and Kaye are a popular double act before they team up with the sisters of an old army buddy, another double act. When they hear that General Waverly is running a Vermont holiday inn in the countryside and he is running into financial difficulties they decide to help out. Of course romantic entanglements cause complications but all is well in the end.

White Christmas was the first film made in VistaVision (which came out shortly after Cinemascope), this is the size of the of two 3:4 screens side by side, but the DVD version here cuts off the edges to fill the standard wide screen television. However, although the picture is a little grainy the colours vibrantly stand out particularly in the musical numbers and particularly in the finale ‘White Christmas’ sequence with all the principals wearing the red and white Christmas outfits. There are a host of fantastic musical numbers (as well as a few throwaway ones) which include some classics including ‘Sisters’, ‘Heatwave’, ‘Blue Skies’, ‘The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing’  and ‘Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me’ but never the less one can’t help feeling that one is waiting the entire film for the ‘White Christmas’ finale. However, the song had appeared 12 years previously in another popular Christmas film starring Bing Crosby, Holiday Inn which follows a fairly similar storyline but in the later film is given a glossy Hollywood updating. Incidentally Fred Astaire, who had co-starred with Crosby in Holiday Inn turned down the role Crosby would make famous. The music was provided in both films by one of the greatest of all musical writers, Irving Berlin.

The film has a strong cast with the crazy Kaye adding buddy support and some lithe dance moves with more than adequate love interest roles for Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney. Kaye had replaced Donald O’Connor who dropped out when Astaire left and his character is very reminiscent to the one Connor had played in probably the greatest movie of all time, Singin’ in the Rain (1952). As well as support from Jagger there is also a good part for character actress Mary Wickes as the housekeeper. But one of the highlights for musical fans will be spotting George Chakiris from West Side Story (1962) as one of the dancers in the musical numbers.

White Christmas is not a great film like, say It’s a Wonderful Life but it works well on a lazy Christmas Eve day and deserves to be a staple for the festive season. From a director of action films such as Errol Flynn actioners, the production values in this Michael Curtiz film are fairly weak but this is more than made up for by the overall gloss of the film one would expect from an Arthur Freed produced MGM musical. Certainly should make for a good stocking filler over the festive season. The extras on the disc include a couple of different trailers, but most especially a retrospective interview with Rosemary Clooney on the film as well as a commentary by Clooney herself.

Chris Hick