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[on Fred Astaire] But when you`re in a picture with Astaire, you`ve got rocks in your head if you do much dancing. He`s so quick-footed and so light that it`s impossible not to look like a hay-digger compared with him.
-- Bing Crosby
The proceeds from the New York City premiere of Holiday Inn went to the Navy Relief Society.
Holiday Inn
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August 4, 1942
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Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin. The film has twelve songs written expressly for the film, the most notable being "White Christmas". In addition the film features a brief use of "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning", written in 1917 for the World War I musical Yip Yip Yaphank (which was reprised on Broadway in 1942 under the title This Is the Army) and a complete reuse of "Easter Parade", written by Berlin for the 1933 Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer. The film's choreography was by Danny Dare.
In May 1940, Irving Berlin signed an exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures to write songs for a film musical based on his idea of an inn that opened only on public holidays. Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were the stars of Holiday Inn with support from Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, filming took place between November 1941 and February 1942. Village Inn Lodge in Monte Rio, California served as the "Holiday Inn", with the use of tons of artificial snow. Holiday Inn had its premiere at the New York Paramount Theatre in August 1942. It was a success in the U.S. and the U.K., the highest grossing film musical to that time. The big song had been expected to be "Be Careful, It's My Heart." While that song did very well, it was "White Christmas" that topped the charts in October 1942 and stayed there for eleven weeks. Another Berlin song, "Happy Holidays", is featured over the opening credits and within the film storyline.
The song that would become "White Christmas" was conceived by Berlin on the set of the film Top Hat in 1935. He hummed the melody to Astaire and the film's director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle. Astaire loved the tune, but Sandrich passed on it. Berlin's assignment for Paramount was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging. When Crosby first heard Berlin play "White Christmas" in 1941 at the first rehearsals, he did not immediately recognize its full potential. Crosby simply said, "I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving."
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Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby), Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire) and Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale), who form a musical act, are staples of the Manhattan nightlife scene. On Christmas Eve, Hardy prepares to give his last performance as part of the act before marrying Lila and retiring with her to a farm in Connecticut. Lila, however, decides at the last minute that she is not ready to stop performing, and that she has fallen in love with Ted, and chooses to stay on as his dancing partner. Jim, while heartbroken, follows through with his plan and bids the act goodbye.
One Christmas Eve later, Jim is back in New York. Farm life has proven difficult (as shown in a montage of Jim trying to cope with the demands of the life he's chosen), requiring him to spend time in a sanatorium to calm his nerves. While recuperating, Jim has dreamed up a new use for his farm. He plans to turn it into an entertainment venue called "Holiday Inn", which will only open on holidays. Ted and his agent Danny Reed (Walter Abel) scoff at the plan, but wish him luck. Reed then leaves for a flight. Stopping off in the airport flower shop to order flowers for Lila from Ted, Reed is accosted by employee Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds) who recognizes him as a talent agent and begs him for a chance in show business. He refers her to Holiday Inn and gives her a pass to Ted's club for the night. She sits at the performer's table where Jim also is sitting. He pretends that he has a big club and isn't sure he could use an act like Hanover and Dixon; she pretends to be a celebrity and friend of Ted's. They both watch Ted and Lila perform, then Linda escapes when the two performers come to Jim's table.
The next morning, Christmas Day, Linda arrives at Holiday Inn. She meets Jim, and both realize that they were fooling each other the previous evening. Jim is readying the place for New Year's Eve. They take to one another immediately and Jim sings his new song, "White Christmas", to Linda, a song he would have performed had the inn been open that night.
On New Year's Eve, Holiday Inn opens to a packed house. In New York, Ted learns that Lila is leaving him for a Texas millionaire. He drinks heavily and heads out to Holiday Inn to talk with Jim. Extremely drunk, Ted arrives just as the clock strikes twelve. Then, wandering aimlessly across the dance floor, Ted and Linda spot each other. She remembers him from Christmas Eve. They dance, with Ted bringing down the house despite his inebriated state. Danny Reed arrives just as the dance ends. He is ecstatic that Ted has found a new partner. However, Ted, who passed out at the end of the dance, remembers very little the next morning and is unaware of Linda's identity. Jim relates no information and hides Linda, as he is afraid that Ted will steal her away from the inn.
At the next performance, Lincoln's Birthday, Ted and Danny return to search for Linda. Jim is ready for them and decides to run the night's big minstrel show number "Abraham" with disguised performers, including Linda, in an effort to foil the search. While applying Linda's blackface make-up, Jim asks if she will stay with him once she is not required to work on non-holidays. Linda takes this as a proposal. The scheme works, with Ted and Danny coming up empty. However, the pair will not give up and plan to be back for Valentine's Day.
On Valentine's Day, at rehearsal, Jim presents Linda with a Valentine, a new song called "Be Careful, It's My Heart". While he sings the song with his back to her, she begins dancing alone. Ted enters, spots Linda rehearsing and launches into an impromptu romantic dance with her. Now convinced that Linda was the girl from New Year's Eve, Ted demands that Jim think up a number for them to perform on the next holiday. Jim has little choice but to concede.
Washington's Birthday features Ted and Linda performing in elaborate eighteenth century period costumes. However, Jim attempts to sabotage their dance by changing the band's tune from a minuet to jazz every time the couple attempts to kiss. Afterward, Ted asks Linda to join him as his new dance partner. Linda refuses, saying she has promised to stay at the inn and that she and Jim are to be married. When Ted talks to Jim of the marriage, Jim is surprised but tries to play it off. Ted is unconvinced and tells Danny he will continue to pursue Linda.
At Easter, romance continues to blossom between Jim and Linda as they travel home from church in a carriage. When they reach the inn, Ted is sitting on the porch waiting from them. Ted asks Jim if he can remain in his shows, claiming he wants to experience "the true happiness you people have found here at the inn". Linda is charmed, but Jim is suspicious.
These suspicions are confirmed on Independence Day when Jim overhears Ted and Danny discussing an offer Ted has received. Hollywood representatives will attend the night's show and determine if Ted and Linda are suitable for motion pictures. Desperate, Jim bribes hired hand Gus (Irving Bacon) to ensure that Linda does not arrive at the inn. Gus attempts to delay her by driving the inn's car into a swollen creek. As Linda tries to return to the inn, she is picked up by Lila, who left the millionaire after his tax problems were revealed. She tells Linda (who is pretending to be a waitress) about the studio tryout and that she (Lila) will be Ted's partner. Assumedly, Jim arranged for her to take Linda's place. Linda directs Lila into the same river. Back at the inn, Ted is forced to perform a solo dance. When Linda eventually makes her way to the inn, she finds that Ted has impressed the studio honchos with his improvised solo and the opportunity stands. Irritated with Jim for not trusting her to make her own decision, she takes the offer and leaves for Hollywood. The producers want to make a film about Holiday Inn, and Jim reluctantly agrees.
At Thanksgiving, the inn is closed and Jim is deeply depressed. He barely touches the turkey dinner prepared by his housekeeper Mamie (Louise Beavers). Jim is prepared to mail to Hollywood a recording of his new Thanksgiving song, but, before he does, he plays it on a record player and makes bitter negative comments over the positive ones in the recording. Mamie realizes just what is wrong and, ignoring decorum, implores him to travel to California to win Linda back from Ted by telling her how he really feels.
He arrives at the studio on Christmas Eve, as Ted is preparing to leave with Linda after the final film shoot to get married. Jim confronts Ted in his dressing room, then locks him in it. Before Linda films the final scene for her movie, which features a recreation of Holiday Inn, Jim walks around the set with the director, who says it is the most exact recreation ever created of a place for a motion picture. Jim leaves his pipe on the set's piano and hides nearby. Linda enters the room and sits at the piano, performing "White Christmas". Startled by the pipe's appearance, she falters, then continues as Jim's voice joins her. He appears and she runs to him as the director hollers "Cut." Ted and Danny, having learned of Jim's plan, are too late to stop him.
The film ends with the New Year's Eve celebration at Holiday Inn. Jim and Linda are prepared to stay together and run the inn. Ted is reunited with Lila, who is ready and willing to perform with him again.
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The success of the song "White Christmas" eventually led to another film based on the song, White Christmas, which was released in 1954 and starred Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. It was a loose remake of Holiday Inn, with a plotline again involving an inn, but otherwise different from the earlier film. Fred Astaire was offered the second lead in the new film, but after reading the script, he declined. The role was then offered to Donald O'Connor, but he was injured before filming began. Danny Kaye took the role.
A colorized version of “Holiday Inn” was released by Universal on October 14, 2008. The colorization was done by Legend Films. The colorization company used Edith Head’s sketch artist, Jan Muckelstone as a color design consultant for costume authenticity.
Each segment of the film is preceded by animation of a calendar with a visual symbol of the given holiday. For November, a turkey is shown jumping back and forth between the third and fourth Thursdays, finally shrugging its shoulders in confusion. This is a satirical reference to the "Franksgiving" controversy sparked in 1939 and 1940 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the Christmas shopping season by declaring Thanksgiving a week earlier than his predecessors. The dispute led to the date of Thanksgiving being established by law rather than by presidential declaration.
The Holiday Inn hotels were named after the film.
Holiday Inn was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the January 11, 1943 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Crosby and Astaire with Dinah Shore.
Beginning in the 1980s, some broadcasts of the movie have cut out the "Abraham" musical number entirely, undoubtedly because of its politically incorrect depiction of a blackface minstrel show incorporating what is now considered by some to be offensively stereotyped mannerisms and dialect. Turner Classic Movies has left the "Abraham" number intact during their screenings of Holiday Inn both for historical purposes, and because it is TCM's policy to show films uncut.
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Marjorie Reynolds singing was dubbed by Martha Mears.
The animated Thanksgiving sequence is a topical reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's failed attempt to change the date of the holiday.
The script originally called for a Labor Day dance number, "This Is a Great Country."
For the "drunk" dance, Fred Astaire had two drinks of bourbon before the first take and one before each succeeding take. The seventh (last) take was used in the film.
The firecracker dance sequence required 3 days of rehearsal and took two days to film. Fred Astaire's shoes for the dance were auctioned off for $116,000 worth of war bonds.
Irving Berlin got the idea for the film after writing the song "Easter Parade" for his 1933 show "As Thousands Cheer", and planned to write a play about American holidays, but it never materialized. He later pitched the idea to Mark Sandrich who got the ball rolling for this film.
Some controversy surrounded the history of the song "White Christmas" when it was reported in a 1960 news item that Irving Berlin wrote the song in 1938, which would have made it ineligible for an Academy Award nomination. But a biography and modern sources agree it was written for this film, and the sheet music has a 1942 copyright date.
The first public performance of the song "White Christmas" was by Bing Crosby on his NBC radio show "The Kraft Music Hall" on Christmas Day, 1941, during the middle of filming _Holiday Inn (1942)_, which was released seven months later. The song went on to become one of the biggest selling songs in the history of music. This was the first of three films to feature Crosby singing "White Christmas".
When Irving Berlin won an Oscar for his song "White Christmas" from this movie, he became the first artist to present himself with an Academy Award.
The original title for "Easter Parade" was "Smile And Show Your Dimple".
Until 1997, "White Christmas" was the best selling music single ever. It was passed at that time by "Goodbye, England's Rose", the Elton John rework of "Candle in the Wind" done for Princess Diana's funeral. These two songs still rank #1-2.
The set of the Holiday Inn (1942) was reused by Paramount 12 years later for the musical White Christmas (1954), also starring Bing Crosby and again with songs composed by Irving Berlin.
Bing Crosby's original "Rhythm Boys" partner Harry Barris plays the orchestra leader in the nightclub scenes.
Founded in 1952, the Holiday Inn hotel chain took its name from this film.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
Bing Crosby sang "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin which went on to win an Academy Award for Best Song. Crosby sang four different Oscar winning songs in his films.
Kemmons Wilson, founder of the "Holiday Inn" motel chain, named them after seeing this movie.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on January 11, 1943 with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire reprising their film roles.
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The telegram that Ted Hanover receives from Jim Hardy on Christmas Eve is dated December 25th.
The calendars shown for the last part of the film are from 1942, except for November, which is from 1941. The progression of calendars goes December 1941, February 1942, April 1942, July 1942, November 1941, and December 1942. This November calendar portrays the second-to-last vs. fourth Thursday Thanksgiving day confusion, started in 1939 by presidential proclamation, and cleared up by congressional legislation in 1941 for the 1942 calendar.
When Jim Hardy plays the bells on the Christmas tree at Holiday Inn, he hits the two bells twice, but in both cases, gets different tones the second time. This happens again, almost identically, when Linda Mason plays the bells on the movie set.
When Lila gives Linda a lift to Holiday Inn, Linda gets in the car, sits down, and starts to close the door. In the next shot, Linda hops into the car again.
Jim leaves his jacket in Ted's room before the first wedding. Although he doesn't pick it up, he has it when he goes into the studio.
Linda loses her hat in the pond when she is with Gus. Although she isn't seen finding the hat, she has it on when she and Lila are driving.
When Jim enters Ted's Hollywood dressing room, he has his pipe on the left side of this mouth. The next shot shows it on the right side, although he has had neither time enough, or his hands free to move it.
In one of the final scenes, the Hollywood set of the inn, Jim Hardy sets his pipe down on the piano. A few minutes later, when Linda Mason reaches for it to tap the bells of the Christmas tree, it has changed position.
When Jim and Linda first meet at the club, the orchestra is playing an instrumental rendition of "Be Careful, It's My Heart". Later, on Valentine's Day, Jim says the song is brand new, and he wrote it just for her.
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