White Christmas turns 70
by Susan King
What was the biggest box office hit of 1954?
The beloved — and corny — Technicolor Paramount musical comedy “White Christmas,” starring the uber popular Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye plus best-selling singer Rosemary Clooney and painfully thin dancer extraordinaire Vera-Ellen, took in $12 million in rentals, over $3 million more than the second biggest film of the year “The Caine Mutiny.”
Directed by Oscar-winner Michael Curtiz (“Casablanca,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy”), “White Christmas,” was Paramount’s first movie produced in widescreen VistaVision, the studio’s answer to CinemaScope. The New York Times was impressed: “The colors on the big screen are rich and luminous, the images are clear and sharp and rapid movements are got without blurring — or very little.”
And then there are the 17 Irving Berlin tunes including “White Christmas,” which Crosby sang in 1942’s “Holiday Inn” and went on to win the original song Oscar, as well as “Sisters,” “Mandy,” “Love-You Didn’t Do Right by Me,” — look for George Chakiris as one of the dancers — “Snow” and the Oscar-nominated “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep).”
Truth be told, moviegoers would have turned up for anything called “White Christmas.” Crosby introduced the song in 1941 on his radio show before he performed it in “Holiday Inn.” The song spent 11 weeks at No. 1 and hit No. 1 again in 1945 and 1947. In fact, it was the best-selling tune until 1997 when Elton John’s reworking of “Candle in the Wind” to commemorate Princess Diana became the top seller.
Originally, “White Christmas” was supposed to reunite Crosby, who was the No. 1 box office champ at the time, with Fred Astaire. The duo had great success not only with “Holiday Inn” but also 1946’s “Blue Skies.” Astaire wasn’t thrilled with the script and nixed the reunion. Donald O’Connor, a top musical comedy star thanks to 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain” and 1953’s “Call Me Madam,” the straight man to the talking mule Francis, and a 1953 Emmy winner for hosting NBC’s “The Colgate Comedy Hour,” was set to star. But he took ill before production began. O’Connor and Crosby would star two years later in the disappointing “Anything Goes.”
Paramount then went to the No. 3 box office star Danny Kaye. The singer/comedic actor/dancer asked for $200,000 and 10% of the gross. And Paramount agreed. “White Christmas” was a reunion for Kaye and Vera-Ellen. The two starred together in the lavish Samuel Goldwyn musical comedies “Wonder Man,” from 1945, and 1946’s “The Kid from the Brooklyn.” Their dance number “The Best Things Happen While Your Dancing” is one of the highlights of the highlights of “White Christmas.”
“White Christmas” was Curtiz’ first film at Paramount after he had departed Warner Bros. where he was under contract since 1926. According to Alan R. Rode’s biography on the filmmaker “Michael Curtiz,” Berlin had a lot of “sway over the production. He and Paramount pushed for Curtiz and convinced Crosby, who had director approval, to agree.”
In fact, notes Rode, “Bing Crosby had final word on anything of significance on the set of ‘White Christmas.’ As Rosemary Clooney put it, ‘Even though Curtiz was a celebrated director — ‘Casablanca’ —and even though Danny Kaye had his own agenda and a very strong ego, Bing was always in charge.”’
Jeremy Arnold relates in TCM.com that when “production began, Berlin wrote in a letter to his friend Irving Hoffman, ‘It is the first movie that I’ve been connected with since ‘Holiday Inn’ that has the feel of a Broadway musical….as of today I feel great and very much like an opening in Philadelphia with a show.”’
The songs and the chemistry of the stars make “White Christmas” watchable. It certainly isn’t the plot. Crosby and Kaye play a blockbuster song-and-dance team who end up in Vermont with a sister group —Clooney and Vera-Ellen — signed to perform at an inn there over the Christmas holidays. The only problem is that there isn’t any snow. And the hotel, run by the Crosby and Kaye’s former World War II commanding officer (Dean Jagger), is on the verge of bankruptcy. The quartet decides to put on a show to save the adored General and his quaint inn,
Rode writes: “Despite the high-octane talent of Norman Krasna who wrote the original screenplay, which would be rewritten by the team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, with contributions by Melville Shavelson, Barney Dean and Jack Rose, the dramatic results were unspectacular. Crosby later said the script was weak and should have been better. Much of the dialogue was languid rather than crisp.”
The New York Times agreed: “Everyone works hard at the business of singing, dancing and cracking jokes, but the stuff that they work with is minor. It doesn’t have the old inspiration and spark... Director Michael Curtiz has made his picture look good. It is too bad that it doesn’t hit the eardrums and the funny bone with equal force.”
But audiences didn’t care back in 1954, and they still don’t care seven decades later. "'White Christmas’ was instantly beloved,” writes Rode. “Just as Berlin’s tune became a standard, its cinematic namesake created a singular identity, as it appealed to the emotions that millions felt each December: family, friends, snow, and yuletide cheer-and Crosby crooning the holiday songs.
Paramount has restored the film from the original VistaVision negative and released a special edition
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and a second Blu-ray for its 70th anniversary, and Fathom Events is bringing “White Christmas” back to the big screen Dec. 15-17.
Susan King was a film/TV/theater writer at the Los Angeles Times for 26 years specializing in Classic Hollywood.