WHITE CHRISTMAS








After leaving the Army after W.W.II, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis team up to become a top song-and-dance act. Davis plays matchmaker and introduces Wallace to a pair of beautiful sisters (Betty and Judy) who also have a song-and-dance act. When Betty and Judy travel to a Vermont lodge to perform a Christmas show, Wallace and Davis follow, only to find their former commander, General Waverly, is the lodge owner. A series of romantic mix-ups ensue as the performers try to help the General save the lodge and have themselves a white Christmas after all.






The director of the legendary Casablanca had almost as prolific a career in his native Hungary and other European countries as he did in Hollywood. First working in movies as an actor debuting in 1912, Curtiz helmed approximately 60 films before coming to America where he made more than 100 movies in 1926. An efficient craftsman generally disliked by both casts and crews, he was a film "commandant" in the mold of other dictatorial Prussian types such as Otto Preminger and Erich von Stroheim. But Curtiz seemed not to have the artistic ambitions of those masters; he rarely initiated his own projects, doing whatever Warner Bros. where he spent most of his American career assigned him. Which isn't to say that he didn't impart his own style to the pictures; an astute practitioner of the German Expressionist tradition in filmmaking, he brought a keen visual sense to his movies right from the beginning of his Hollywood tenure, imbuing routine melodramas such as The Third Degree ( his first American film) with eye-popping camera angles and compositions.

His superior skills, and the conviction he managed to bring to even the silliest scenarios, made Curtiz more than just a studio hack, and most of his films continue to hold up as models of cinematic storytelling, although "auteur" theorists refuse to take him seriously because his work isn't confined to one genre or imbued with a consistent "worldview." Often a bridesmaid, he earned Oscar nominations for Four Daughters, Angels with Dirty Faces and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Amazingly, Curtiz won his only Oscar for Casablanca a troubled production that had been written off by its cast and chaotically shot with almost daily script revisions. As the studio system of filmmaking waned in the 1950s, so did Curtiz' career. He directed one of Elvis Presley's most credible films, King Creole , and made his cinematic swan song, The Comancheros in 1961.





Curtiz made a career, probably more than any other director in Hollywood, out of being a chameleon. He was never really interested in doing one type of project. He worked in Horror movies, in subtle character driven dramas, and, as in White Christmas, to full scale movie musicals. His lengthy and wonderful long shots are a testament to how he felt about filming a musical. There are very few cut-aways, and very few close ups as Ellen and Kaye hoof. Yet during The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing, he uses his camera as a roving eye. As Vera Ellen glides along the Warf outside the club where she and Rosemary Clooney have recently finished their two woman act, we are taken along with Ellen’s magnificent foot work.

He films both women beautifully and the colors and the sets never try and be anything they’re not. Consider his masterful work in Casablanca, where we always feel like we’re literally IN the location, as opposed to the full colored, lush and romantic locations in White Christmas. As if everything has been painted with watercolors and the laid out in the sun to dry, we’re in the middle of pallet. Curtiz is in love with making this musical, and it shows. In every frame.






Ellen made exactly 13 movies before disappearing completely out of sight. Of all of Fred's dancing partners, only Vera-Ellen Westmeyer Rohe (it rhymes with go) matched him in versatility, ability, and work ethic. Together, they created some of the most incredible dance routines ever seen onscreen. She was, in fact, the only woman to ever be considered the peer of both Fred and Gene Kelly.
She began dancing for health reasons at the age of 10. During her early career, she appeared in nightclub acts, as one of the youngest Rockettes, and a Broadway dancer.

Her movie career began in 1945, when she appeared with Danny Kaye in "Wonder Man". She had a reputation as an extremely hard worker and warm personality. She appeared in 13 movies, all of them musicals, until the late 1950's, dancing with Gene Kelly in the highly acclaimed "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" number in Words and Music, dancing and acting with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in On The Town, appearing twice with Fred and also with the Marx Brothers and Bing Crosby in other movies.

Today, however, she is largely forgotten.

The reason for her disappearance from the movies is complicated. It is quite obvious that she became alarmingly thin in her thirties. Her peculiar eating habits are well documented. Always a reclusive person, she was also a sufferer of anorexia at a time when not much was known about the disease. One of the side effects of anorexia is that she began to age rapidly. If you watch White Christmas, her neck is constantly covered. This was to mask the most obvious effects of the aging. In an industry and culture where youth and beauty were prized, she didn't stand a chance. At the same time, the era of musicals at Hollywood came to an end. She simply wasn't as good an actor as she was a dancer.

Finally, her only daughter, Victoria Ellen Rothschild, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1963. This was a tremendously traumatic experience for her, hastening the end of her marriage and ultimately of her life.
…
Even though she did retire from public life, Vera-Ellen continued to take dancing lessons, partly to combat the arthritis she suffered later.





Ellen is not an actress. She doesn’t pretend to be what she’s not. However, when she dances, there is no one better. She is strikingly thin, and that’s always been something that even at a young age, I noticed. Especially compared to Clooney, who was at that time, just the right size. But it really was her mile a minute feet that fires up her performance. She’s fine in her scenes, and she handles herself well considering the heavy duty talent she’s up against, but there’s very few that can touch her fabulous personality and her gorgeous long lines when she’s doing what she obviously loves the most.

Her “Mandy” number in the red dress is unreal. Her first entrance off a long wire hung from the ceiling is a close up of her feet as they tap out a new Morse code. It’s uncanny. Her gymnastics as she’s flipped, whirled around, and thrown straight up in the air and into the arms of waiting chorus boys at the foot of a mile long staircase are eye popping.

She is a beautiful girl and a rival for Cyd Charrisse (arguably the best dancer in the business). It’s a shame she retired so soon, I would have loved to have seen her as she aged. A wonderful, imaginative and stunning dancer.

Trudy Stevens was the voice for Vera Ellen. In some bios they claim that Betty Clooney (Rosemary’s sister) was the voice for Ellen, but this is myth. It was, and always has been, Trudy Stevens.





Danny Kaye left school at 13 to work in the Catskills. It was here that he learned the basics of showbiz. From there, he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in the "Straw Hat Revue", but it was the stage production of the musical "Lady in the Dark", which brought him acclaim and notice from the agents. Also in 1940, Danny married Sylvia Fine who went on to manage his career. She also helped create the routines and gags that he performed. Danny could sing and dance like many others, but his specialty was reciting those tongue-twisting songs and monologues. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. had been trying to sign him to a movie contract for two years before he eventually agreed. Goldwyn wanted to put him into a series of Technicolor musicals starting with Up in Arms. His debut, as "Danny", was successful and he continued to make hit movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Inspector General.

In his later years he was known primarily for his work with UNICEF, this pixyish, red-haired entertainer had been convulsing both kids and their parents his entire life with his energetic clowning and his ingenious patter songs. Like most of his generation of performers, he worked his way up through vaudeville, nightclubs, and even the borscht belt.

He returned to Goldwyn to play the title role in the musical biopic Hans Christian Andersen . He then moved over to Paramount, where he produced his own vehicles, with the writing-directing team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank. They turned out to be his all-time best: Knock on Wood , in which he plays a ventriloquist caught up in international intrigue, and The Court Jester , an uproarious swashbuckler parody which includes the unforgettable "vessel with the pestle" wordplay routine. (Panama and Frank also wrote the maudlin screenplay for 1954's smash hit White Christmas in which Kaye served as a last-minute replacement for Donald O'Connor.)

Kaye’s talents are too numerous to mention quite frankly. In White Christmas he’s allowed to let loose and literally pull out every trick in the book he’s known for. He’s a good old fashioned song and dance man, and none of it is wasted. His limping Private as he tries to steer the General away from the Television is Kaye at is best. I love this man. I love his exuberance and his unique and unbridled comic timing. He’s a joy in this film.






Born May 23, 1928, in Maysville, Kentucky. The distinctively unpretentious, deep, rich, and smooth voice of Rosemary Clooney earned her recognition as one of America's premiere pop and jazz singers. According to Clooney's record company press biography, Life magazine, in a tribute to America's "girl singers" named her one of "six preeminent singers ... whose performances are living displays of a precious national treasure ... their recordings a preservation of jewels." First-class crooner Frank Sinatra stated, as was also reprinted in Clooney's press biography, "Rosemary Clooney has that great talent which exudes warmth and feeling in every song she sings. She's a symbol of good modern American music."

The singer noted for her decades-long mastery of American popular song started life amid the poverty of small-town Maysville.
In the early 1950s radio made a strong bid to issue a challenge to the growing magnetism of television. Star-studded variety programs were created, and week after week Hollywood studios offered musical programs by big names. Clooney was signed to co-host, with beloved vocalist Bing Crosby, a songfest radio show, which aired every weekday morning on CBS radio. Film roles abounded; Clooney's appearance in White Christmas was generally credited with the film's enormous success, which made it the top grosser of 1954. Costarring with hot properties Kay and Crosby and accompanied by the music of Irving Berlin, Clooney was lauded for her performance, in which she sang the ballad "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me."

Clooney’s Hits

• Botch-a-Me


• Come On-A My House


• Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) (However, the best-known version of this song was recorded by Eddie Fisher.)


• From This Moment On


• Half as Much


• Hey There


• Mambo Italiano


• Blue Skies


• You're Just In Love (duet with Guy Mitchell)


• Oh, What a Beautiful Morning


• Tenderly


• This Ole House


• You'll Never Know (This song was also recorded, in better-known versions, by Dick Haymes and Frank Sinatra.)


• You Make Me Feel So Young



No one had any idea of Rosemary’s ability to actually act. She is brilliant in this musical. Watch as she and Bing have their first fight. Clooney’s character believes that Bing’s character has gotten the two sisters up to the lodge under false pretences, and Clooney’s at the end of her rope. She is surprisingly natural and honest in this scene. So much so, it’s almost uncomfortable to watch and belongs in another movie altogether.

Curtiz himself was over heard to say that although she was screen tested several times, when the time actually came for the camera’ to roll, Rosemary was more breath takingly real than he had thought.





“I kept having to remind her that this was a musical comedy. She and Bing would get together and plan all these maddening dives into realism and drama, and I had to hold them back just a bit. Although in the end, I think they were both right, it worked amazingly well, and the audiences love them both.”

Clooney’s acting career never really took off. Shocking considering her detailed, nuanced work here, but she as a singer at heart, and that’s all she was really interested in. And her voice is golden. Clooney has an arresting, smooth quality to her, and a way of phrasing a song that is unique and gentle. “Count Your Blessings” is a gorgeous tune, and made even more so by Clooney’s deep, throaty and dark Alto.

She did it all. And she did with great style. And excellent performance.

"In the final analysis, it's true that fame is unimportant. No matter how great a man is, the size of his funeral usually depends on the weather."
-Rosemary Clooney






With his relaxed jazz phrasing and intelligent interpretation of song lyrics, Bing Crosby revolutionized popular vocal styles in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and pioneered the crossover success of pop singers on movie screens. While attending Gonzaga University, Crosby joined forces with Al Rinker and Harry Barris to form a vocal trio. "The Rhythm Boys" became a featured specialty with the Paul Whiteman band, with whom they made their film debut in the 1930 Technicolor revue The King of Jazz Crosby decided to leave the group, and was championed by Mary Pickford. He sang to America's Sweetheart in several publicity shorts and made a brief appearance singing "There's No Low-Down Lower Than That" in Douglas Fairbanks' 1931 version of Reaching for the Moon A 15-minute CBS radio show made Crosby a household name, and Mack Sennett signed the crooner for a half dozen tworeelers.

Crosby signed with Paramount in 1932 and became a major screen star with his first starring feature, The Big Broadcast In the 1930s he appeared in sparkling, sometimes surreal entertainment.

Then in 1940 he was teamed with comedian and off-camera buddy Bob Hope in The Road to Singapore The picture offered a winning combination of songs, romance, in-jokes, and burlesque shtick. Over the next 20 years, exchanging snappy patter, kidding each other's public personas, and generally seeming to have a good time.

Holiday Inn paired the singer with Fred Astaire; Crosby's rendition of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" went on to become the biggest-selling record of all time. Until Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” a Tribute to Princess Diana finally eclipsed it.

Although White Christmas wasn’t exactly a dramatic stretch for Crosby, he did manage to slip in a lauded performance in “The Country Girl” alongside Grace Kelly. Although a wonderful performance, White Christmas and the success of it eclipsed Country Girl in the minds of American audiences.

There’s no doubt Crosby can act. There’s no doubt Crosby can song, and when you put the two together it’s a magical combination. Bing had a way of finding a scene and simply layering on top of it. He never came in barrels loaded. It always seemed to me that he was simply concocting a character on top of the text. It’s fantastic gift and one that I also think infiltrates his musicianship as well.

Watch Bing casually entices Rosemary with “Count Your Blessings”. He allows the song to carry itself and yet with his admonishment of who he is in the scene adds a context and a structure that is uniquely his own. There are no more entertainers like this one. No one has the kind of career Crosby had. The song White Christmas continues to be one of the biggest selling songs of all time, and the man’s got an Oscar on his shelf as well. Crosby is stupendous here, and is never more than what the author put down on the page. He is the glue that holds this picture together.







TRIVIA

Filming took place between September and November 1953. The movie was the first to be filmed in the new VistaVision process and its lush Technicolor cinematography has ensured that it has had a long shelf life on TV, video and DVD. Released in 1954, it became the top grossing film of that year.

• This was the first film produced in Paramount's wide screen process "VistaVision".

• The TV camera in the Ed Harrison Show scene is a real one (a classic RCA monochrome; the cameraman is hiding the telltale logo with his hand), but the call sign atop it was real as well - it was that of Channel 4, NBC's (and thus RCA's) flagship station in New York, which changed its call sign to WRCA-TV the year of the film's release. (They adopted their current WNBC-TV calls in 1960.)

• The original idea was to reunite Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, as they had been successful in Holiday Inn. Astaire refused, as he had "retired" at the time, so the part was reworked for Donald O'Connor. O'Connor pulled out, and the part was reworked for Danny Kaye.

• The photo that Vera-Ellen shows to Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye of her brother, Bennie, is actually a photo of Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer.

• All of Vera-Ellen's costumes, down to her robe and sleepwear, were designed to cover her neck, which was aged beyond her years due to her eating disorder, anorexia.

• The Vermont inn is the remodeled Connecticut inn set of Holiday Inn (1942).

• The song "Snow" was written by Irving Berlin a while before the film was made but with a different lyric and title and indeed subject (it had nothing to do whatsoever with snow): it was called "Free" and it was recorded by the composer.

• The "Sisters" comedy act that Bing and Danny perform was not originally in the script. They were clowning around on the set and the director thought it was so funny that it was written in.


Here’s the trailer.It’s the small insignia in the middle of the page.






This is plain old great entertainment. I love this movie because it makes me happy. The songs are great it’s beautifully filmed, the choreography is outstanding, and it has a happy ending. It’s nothing but caramelized fluff and I adore everything about it. It could be a synonym for something deeper and more philosophical, but it’s not. It’s what a Christmas musical should be: light. Airy, delicious, and filled with empathy and nostalgia. This is really one of the only Holiday traditions we have in our house. It isn’t Christmas until we watch this. Plain and simple.

Okay, maybe it is about something: A good darn time.