Anyone expecting a film entirely about what the Christmas holidays would be like in a world of white supremacy should stop reading now. Thankfully White Christmas isn’t the Christmas time sequel to D.W.Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. Instead it is a delightfully charming 1950’s Irving Berlin musical starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye on top form. It has great songs, great dancing, great swoons of romance, great dialogue and some other moments that are great. A bona-fide Christmas classic indeed. Here then it is, White Christmas.
The Christmas Story
This 1954 Christmas classic was the first film to be produced and shown in VISTAVISION a fact that is more prominent in this film’s marketing than literally anything else. It’s even the film’s tagline. After saving his life in WW2, Phil Davis rides on the coattails of Bob Wallace into a superbly successful song and dance double act inventively called Wallace and Davis. Once they become a successful producing company they head off to a club and both fall madly in love with a sister act called, again rather inventively, The Haynes Sisters, after bailing them out of trouble, they follow the two sisters to Vermont where they’re booked for a winter season in a Vermont ski lodge. BUT there is no snow in Vermont so business is terrible. AND the lodge is owned by Wallace and Davis’ old army general Major Waverley. As his business is failing Wallace is desperate to help his old General and hatches a plan to get people to come to Vermont not for the snow, but for a show. Throw in some songs, some dances, some romantic interest, some VISTAVISION, some lovely dresses and plenty of good cheer and boom, you have White Christmas. 4/5.
The Voice of Christmas
Bob Wallace abandons any kind of personal interest or gain, even turning down an offer of televising the whole thing with the resulting $200,000 of free publicity for him and Davis it would bring, in order to aid the General and his ailing Vermont lodge. Obviously he also wants to get with that Betty Haynes lady, but that’s only like 30% of why he does it, the other 70% is pure Christmas unselfishness. Betty even remarks that what he’s doing is “one of the most decent and unselfish acts” she’s ever heard of. Bob encompasses all the good and decent things about the festive season and bends over backwards to ensure that everyone has a jolly good time. He’s like Dr. Bunsen and Beaker in Muppet’s Christmas Carol they both abandon themselves entirely to ensuring that someone else has a really ace Christmas. Only difference being Bob doesn’t have to part with a sweet red scarf at the end. 4/5.
The Annoying Li’l Girl (At Christmas)
That Ol’ busy-body housekeeper Emma Allen, she steams open telegrams and eavesdrops on private phone conversations and it is her busy-bodying that causes Betty to get the wrong end of the stick and nearly drives her and Bob apart. A flourishing exciting love driven apart by lies, and half heard truths, that my friends is the antithesis of what you’re supposed to be like at Christmas. Although she does have some qualities, if Wallace’s face and eagerness post-kiss is anything to go by, she is an amazing kisser, so I guess that’s a plus. 3/5
The Christmas Miracle
First Miracle - It’s amazing that no one actually starts crying when they arrive in snowless Vermont. On the train to Vermont they sing a delightful ditty about how much they love snow and ask “What is Christmas without snow?” They are so keen for snow they’re willing to risk frostbite and hyperthermia by washing their “face, hands and hair with snow” so when they arrive in the arid, snowless Vermont it’s miraculous that no one starts beefing or at the very least cursing very loudly.
Second Miracle - People must’ve been a lot nicer in 1954, all of the cast, crew, techies and musicians from Wallace – Davis Productions come down to Vermont to work, rehearse and prepare a show right around the Christmas period to open on Christmas Eve. If nowadays you gave your employees 2 weeks off for Christmas and then told them to sack that off, come to Vermont and prepare an awesome show to be performed in an empty Vermont Ski Lodge they’d be up in arms. But in 1954 they relished the opportunity. Although it is a possibility that Wallace-Davis Productions only employed Non-Christian Orphans… 3/5
The Christmas Message
White Christmas pretty much contains all the best Christmas messages. It encourages kindness, unselfishness, fun, joy, a desire for snow and doing really nice things for people who really deserve it, all fine attributes that any upstanding lover of Christmas should do their best to uphold at Christmas. It also lets us know that If you serve in the army at any point, be aware that there is a high chance that you will be required to have a pretty good singing voice and will probably have to, at some point, go to a Vermont Ski Lodge on Christmas eve to deliver an excellent Christmas surprise to your old army general. It’s not set in stone but you should be prepared. Be nice and lovely and unselfish at Christmas, whilst at the same time being entirely prepared to travel to Vermont. 4/5
Additional Notes
We never get to see Freckle Face Haynes: The Dog Faced Boy in the flesh and when we see his picture crikey does it not justify the name/hype. (-1)
We do however see his sisters, and they are pretty ace. (+1)
People spend a lot of time staring directly at camera, it becomes a touch disconcerting. Almost as if you are invading their private dance based moment. (-1)
All the musical numbers display that utterly charming 1950’s musical MGM charm complete with some cracking Irving Berlin tunes. (+2)
Wallace and Davis’ Sisters musical number is well funny. (+1)
The conniving antics of Davis and Co to keep the General away from The Ed Harrison show is most amusing. (+1)
OVERALL FESTIVITY RATING – 21/25
Tomorrow it's A Christmas Story coz who hasn't at some point or another had to convince their parents, teachers and Santa himself, that a Red Ryder BB gun is the perfect Christmas gift for a young lad in the 1940's.
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