Simply A Masterpiece

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

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.

There was probably no sweeter human to come out of 1950s Hollywood than Danny Kaye. And he put all his skills to use in this film along side Bing Crosby and Co. Never the less, it was still tough to get through. The neat thing is, is that I got to see it in an actual movie theater, as meant to be, I suppose. It's really a campy story - and if I'd been a studio Exec in 1953, and heard the Pitch, Synopsis and Scenario, I would not have green-lighted it at all! ha.Basically, a song-n-dance duo (Kaye/Crosby) meet two lovely sister who kinda do the same. Said sisters travel to VT for a gig, and the boys follow them all the way. Olny to get there and find out, that an old commanding general of theirs from WWII own the lodge where gig was at, and learn that the old man is in debt and about to lose everything. The two song-n-dance duos (with lots of lovin' and flirting in between) orchestrate a way to save the old fellow, and have a Merry Christmas together. Look for it on streaming services, but don't bother buying it. Let in run in the background at your family/friends xmas party, and everyone will enjoy the music!

I know that people may think me unpatriotic, but the message here is that we need to continue to glorify war. The U.S. had just finished World War II and celebrated a great victory. Now we had the big Commie fear and a trip to Korea where many more of our young people dead. So in 1954 comes a "Christmas" movie. It pushes all the right buttons and has the stars of the day, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Bing Crosby (one of the most hawkish performers of all time) and becomes a kind of recruiting poster when we were done with war for a while (of course, we were already meddling in southeast Asia). It does have a decent story and those songs were well performed, but there is no comparison between this and "Holiiday Inn" which carries a much more romantic theme, and also stars Bing Crosby. The main thing for me is that at times I just find it sort of dull.

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!