#holiday inn 1942

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

Anything Goes December

Holiday Inn / Marjorie Reynolds as Linda Mason

Another Edith Head design. I always knew this dress just had to be gold! The colorized version of this film is honestly not bad, and they took the trouble to research the actual color of the dress. As you can see in the bottom photo, they faithfully reproduced the color. It also has a slit down the back for easy movement. The silver strip creates an interesting effect like a yoked collar, and it also offsets the deepness of the V-neck so that it is less noticeable.

I'm sure Fred Astaire was glad that, unlike the most famous beaded dress on one of his dancing partners, this one didn't have wide sleeves to smack him in the face!

It's also too bad Marjorie Reynolds didn't have more of a film career, because I do find her enjoyable in this.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

watching holiday inn (1942) and in the first 15 minutes i'm like this film would be 18 minutes if polycule

[voidblacktea]

Christmas Classics: Holiday Inn (1942) 

Holiday Inn is a weird one, it's a musical-comedy starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, it's a love triangle at a country inn only open during the holidays, it's important because it's the film that gave the world the song White Christmas and this is where the hotel franchise got its name.

There is something very cozy and inviting about the film in general and about the inn where the characters pull together their shows; the story is fun; the songs & dance numbers are great and I really liked Bing Crosby's character, but it features a damn blackface scene that just kills me. In the context of the movie it's not "thaaat bad" I guess - it's a scene where the characters are trying to hide their identity AND the song is praising Abe Lincoln for freeing slaves AND it's 1942 - but it is completely JARRING watching it 80 years later.

You could say Holiday Inn, as a Christmas classic, is the time capsule of a film that contains some really interesting glimpses of both the good and the bad of the time.

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Christmas Countdown [9/12] Holiday Inn (1942)

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Fred Astaire during rehearsals for Holiday Inn, 1942

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Holiday Inn, Mark Sandrich

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[adamwatchesmovies]

Holiday Inn (1942)

For many reasons, Holiday Inn is a classic but one particular scene prevents it from being a film you'd happily watch over and over. It makes me uncomfortable for multiple reasons but I can kinda-sorta defend it in this movie because of the context in which it's used. It sounds like a weak argument but hold on, listen to what I’ve got to say before you judge. Even if the scene in particular is a deal-breaker, there's a solution.

Jim Hardy (Bing Crosby), his fiancé Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) and Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire) are a trio of successful singer-dancers. As Jim prepares to retire from the hustle-and-bustle of non-stop performances to live on a farm with his future wife… his partners announce they have no intention of stopping and ditch him. Finding the farm life back-breaking, he converts his home into “Holiday Inn”, an entertainment venue open only on holidays and featuring elaborate dance and musical numbers. The first performer to join Jim's new troupe is Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds), whom he quickly falls for but is afraid to show his feelings to due to a broken heart.

Plot-wise, there’s plenty going on. After Holiday Inn is up and running, Linda catches the eye of Ted and his agent, Danny Reed (Walter Abel). They don’t know what her name is, which prompts Jim to hide her from the two and try to keep her “for himself”. It creates all sorts of drama and comedic situations between the whopping twelve original numbers featured throughout this musical. The best and most well-known is White Christmas - yes, this is where that tune comes from. It's never been better than here. The song is romantic and beautiful. Seeing it in its original context fills your heart with warmth. Overall, this is a charming, romantic story filled with sometimes insecure and often messy characters. This is one of those movies that on paper would look awful but in action, works. Big credit goes to Marjorie Reynolds, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, who are great together.

Now let’s address the giant stain at the center of this story; the reason why you’ll probably wind up seeing an edited version of it on TV. Once Jim realizes that Ted is searching for Linda, he is desperate to find a way to hide her from his former partner. Unfortunately, he also needs to keep his clients happy with a stage number for Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12, for those who don’t know). His solution is to run the minstrel show number Abraham. This means Crosby and Reynolds (along with the band) appear in blackface so that no one watching will recognize them. It makes your skin crawl and isn’t helped by the limited amount of dialogue given to the black actors in the film (other than Louise Beavers, there aren't any other people of colour in significant roles) but as far as uses of a racist, offensive and disrespectful form of theatrical make-up, it’s probably the least offensive version you’ll see because it's less of a "let's make fun of Black people/find a way to avoid hiring Black actors in our movie" and more of a "hey, it's ok to use this as a costume/disguise, right?". It's still not ideal, but it could've been much worse.

A standout moment in Holiday Inn has aged so poorly that it threatens to derail the entire film. The rest is a funny, romantic and entertaining holiday story. The dance numbers are outstandingly shot, staged and performed. It’s extra exciting to watch because of how few edits break up the footwork and because you know the people making those moves were really doing them. No wires or backgrounds were removed via computer effects. As for the songs, they range from pretty good to instant classics. In the end, I choose not to judge Holiday Inn for its worst scene and would rather focus on its strongest moments. If you don’t think you can, this is one instance where I would break my usual policy and recommend you view the edited-for-TV version. (On DVD, November 30, 2019)

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Yesterday I watched “Holiday Inn” (1942) Musical/Comedy

This is one of the movies my family watches every Christmas. The songs are great, the dancing is excellent, the drama is entertaining, the vibes are lovely. The forth of July freedom man section is so aggressively and unashamedly American I love it. The drama caused by miscommunication is a little annoying, but not bothersome. The only real downside is the scene where the characters preform in black face, oof. The song they sing in that section absolutely slaps thoh so in my view that evens out the ick. Despite that I wholeheartedly recommend.

9/10

[lupinoschums]

[carriefisher]

HOLIDAY INN dir. Mark Sandrich, 1942

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Bing Crosby - White Christmas 1942

"White Christmas" is a song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. Written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 musical film Holiday Inn, the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 15th Academy Awards. Originally sung by Bing Crosby, it topped the Billboard chart for 11 weeks and returned to the number one position again in December 1943 and 1944. His version would return to the top 40 a dozen times in subsequent years.

Since its release, "White Christmas" has been covered by many artists. Crosby's version is the world's best-selling single (in terms of sales of physical media), with estimated sales in excess of 50 million physical copies worldwide. The Guinness Book of World Records 2009 Edition lists the song as a 100-million seller, encompassing all versions of the song, including albums. Crosby's holiday collection Merry Christmas was first released as an LP in 1949, and has never been out of print since.

The song established that there could be commercially successful secular Christmas songs - in this case, written by a Jewish immigrant to the US. Before 1942, Christmas songs and films had come out sporadically, and many were popular. However, "the popular culture industry had not viewed the themes of home and hearth, centered on the Christmas holiday, as a unique market" until after the success of "White Christmas" and the film where it appeared, Holiday Inn.

The version most often heard today on the radio during the Christmas season is the 1947 re-recording. The 1942 master was damaged due to frequent use. Crosby re-recorded the track on March 19, 1947, accompanied again by the Trotter Orchestra and the Darby Singers, with every effort made to reproduce the original recording session. The re-recording is recognizable by the addition of flutes and celesta in the beginning. In 1974, the 1942 recording of the song by Bing Crosby and The Ken Darby Singers was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, National Public Radio included it in the "NPR 100", which sought to compile the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century. Crosby's version of the song also holds the distinction of being ranked No. 2 on the "Songs of the Century" list, behind only Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow," as voted by members of the RIAA. In 2002, the original 1942 version was one of 50 historically significant recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.

"White Christmas" received a total of 74,5% yes votes!

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Holiday Inn, 1942

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Holiday Inn (1942)

Directed by Mark Sandrich

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Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States!

When Abraham Lincoln declared the first annually recurring national Thanksgiving Day holiday in 1863, he declared that "the last Thursday of November next" would be the date of observance, and that tradition more or less held for the next several decades.

Flash forward to 1939.....

It was an eventful year: with war breaking out in Europe and conflict continuing in the Far East, the United States declared a state of National Emergency and was activating National Guard units and drafting young men once more.

With the U.S. quietly preparing for a war most of the American people thought was none of their business, few saw the crisis that was emerging within their own borders.....

..... that year, November had five Thursdays.

So what's the big deal?

Well, the big deal was that the holiday shopping season began at Thanksgiving, meaning that, with Thanksgiving falling on the last Thursday in November, 1939 would have one fewer shopping week before Christmas.

With potential profits on the line, American businessmen asked President Franklin Roosevelt to intervene. And he did.

In August of 1939, FDR announced that Thanksgiving Day would fall on the fourth Thursday of November, starting that same year.

This meant that Thanksgiving NOW would fall on Thursday, November 23rd, rather than a week later on November 30th.

This made the businessmen happy, but the calendar printers, football fans, out-of-state college students, and families with travel plans were furious.

Many state governors (mostly from the opposing party, and football fans to boot) ignored the change, and instead held Thanksgiving on its usual day.

Twenty-three states switched, twenty-two did not, and three observed the holiday on both days.

This, of course, caused a LOT of confusion nation-wide, and the political backlash was, well, predictable. And thus was born "Franksgiving" (from "Franklin" and "Thanksgiving").

In 1940, it happened again....

.....then again in 1941.

Some called the two different holidays "Republican Thanksgiving" and "Democrat Thanksgiving", and the confusion even was mocked by Hollywood.

This series of stills in this post is from a clip from the 1942 movie "Holiday Inn" (full clip posted in comments) in which the cartoon turkey runs himself frantic dashing between the two dates on the (1941) calendar.

By the end of 1941, Congress decided to act.

On November 26th - the day before the traditional Thanksgiving and six days after the new Thanksgiving, Congress placed on Roosevelt's desk a resolution legally fixing Thanksgiving Day as the fourth Thursday in November, thus solving the problem for the businessmen and the football fans alike.

Thanksgiving in 1941 would be the last dual-date Thanksgiving in the United States.

It also would be the last Thanksgiving the American people would have before the war from which they wished to hide came and found them, which meant, for many families, it would be their last Thanksgiving Day together in this life.

Historia Obscurum