White Christmas (1954)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Looking for some holiday diversion? Miss the old-days of garishly cozy sound stages? Wanna see "White Christmas" sung by its originator? Then by all means…see Holiday Inn. However, White Christmas, a mild confection of a film, will also do the trick. Coming from a wonderfully different era of film, we get multi-talented performers dancing, singing, acting, and delivering great dialogue, all with a smile on their face. It's a fairly shallow but glamorously fun standard that chugs with charm. Much like director Curtiz's Casablanca, WC exists right on the edges of WWII, with a couple of army vets using their stage presences to woo girls and raise money for their ex-commanding-officer's new hotel. All the performers are clearly enjoying themselves, with Crosby and Kaye respectably matching their annoyed cynicism and wide-eyed mischievousness to enhance each joke and scene. The songs provide much of the charm; while far from totally stellar, the dancing and humor within the numbers are great. What Curtiz really provides is some wonderful gravitas in the war setting, especially in the opening and closing scenes. The general character is a flawless combination of hard-edged soldier and kind-hearted old man. His face in the finale is wonderfully teary-eyed, and it's all done without depressing the mostly joyous proceedings. What does drag the film down are the romantic-comedy annoyances (bad communication, random acts of infatuation, silly logic). At a solid 2-hrs, the film needed some cuts and much of these forced love-tropes should've hit the floor. Still, if you can set aside your cynicism for a night of frivolous American fluff, WC has plenty of charm to keep you humming along.

I was told that 'Holiday Inn' (1942) from which this film was adapted was the better movie. Boy, was that a crock. I just saw it and it stunk.This film has Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen, the much more desirable pairing than Bing Cosby and Rosemary Looney, two schmucks who could not dance or act to save their lives - and they needed to in this holiday celluloid because they have all the personality of a couple of comatose slugs.Danny sings as beautiful as ever, and of course he's so funny. Vera is pretty and puts Rosemary to shame. Dean Jagger provides a solid block of dignity as a retired army general.Pass on Holiday Inn; this is the version to watch. It's 10 times more fun with more story and less random dance numbers. Enjoy!

I didn't saw this film on its premiere engagement at the Plaza Lower Regent Street in 1954'I have seen it a couple of times since,and have never highly rated it.Mundane story and forgettable numbers apart from the title numbers.I saw it again last Wednesday at the Regent Street cinema.I didn't change my view of the film.However I noticed how thin Vera Ellen looked.I looked her up on the Internet when I got home.I saw that she had suffered from anorexia.The film was on TV on Christmas Day,so I watched again.She appeared painfully thin,her legs was like matchstick.She always had her neck and chest covered,presumably to hide how thin she looked.She was a great dancer but paid a heavy price for fame.

This movie seems like a sort of excuse to give lots of singing and dancing opportunities to its various superstars, but underlying the merriment is a bit of pathos. It starts on a battlefield in Europe in the winter of 1944, and a soldier with a beautiful singing voice gently voices a prayer for a white Christmas that perhaps says more about the state of mind of the troops than any terrifyingly violent action film could say. The movie ends up being about finding love, self and some measure of contentment in the period after the war, and for that it packs more feeling than it first appears. For all of its clunky moments, it helps us find a meaningful Christmas.