I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…
So I can put on a minstrel show…
This is an odd Christmas movie because it doesn’t feel Christmasy. We start the movie off in the midst of World War 2, which was unexpected. Even more unexpected was that uniformed soldiers were putting on a show during the heat of combat. But I guess that sets the tone as I knew I had some disbelief to suspension. Then we forward 10 years and two former military men played by Crosby and Danny Kaye have become successful song and dance men. And they find themselves tangled up with two low level song and dance broads, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. The foursome find their way to Vermont during a winter heat wave, where the white in White Christmas is gone.
The setup takes them to a failing inn ran by, coincidentally, their former general. So the foursome attempt to save the time with funny quips and mostly memorable songs and some whacky miscommunication, that could have easily been resolved if the characters would just talk to one another. There’s no Santa, there’s no snow, there’s very little carols. All we get is Bing Crosby once again trying to save an inn during the holidays… which doesn’t that plot sound familiar.
So White Christmas doesn’t really offer us anything new, but then again that might be the point as the plot circles around the idea of nostalgia. How times were better in 1942… which I’m sure wasn’t the case for a lot of people around the world. But dammit, Crosby just wants a Christmas just like he used to know. I will say that I did enjoy this cast. Crosby make the perfect foil to Kaye’s over the top physical humor. So their chemistry is good, and the chemistry with the female leads works, even though the plot is super thin.
It’s basically an excuse to have musical number, followed by a scene or two of dialogue, followed by another musical number. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing considering the music was composed by Irving Berlin.. The song Count Your Blessings was even nominated for an Oscar. But to me, my favorite number was Sisters, where we get to see Crosby and Kaye dress up in drag, which is rather progressive. But there is one very very cringy number entitled I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show. Now by this point in time, Crosby or Berlin or anyone on set should have known that glorifying the minstrel days was taboo. But then again this is followed up by an instrumental version of Abraham, which is a black face number from one of Crosby’s earlier films. I don’t know if this was an attempt to justify his earlier use of black face from over a decade ago, or what. All I know it left a bad taste in my mouth. Another weird number is when Kaye makes fun of beatniks and interpretive dance choreography. Maybe that was a shot at Gene Kelly and the dancing dream sequences from movies like An American in Paris.
Overall it’s not my favorite musical, but it’s lite and entertains for the most part. It’s something you can easily enjoy in the background as you’re pounding out gingerbread men over a hot stove.
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