Holiday Inn (1942), starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale
Editorial review of Holiday Inn courtesy of Amazon.com
This perennial, Christmas-season favorite from 1942 teamed Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire as entertainers (and rival suitors of Marjorie Reynolds) running an inn that is only open on holidays. It’s a great excuse for lots of singing and dancing, seamlessly wrapped in a catchy story, and Astaire’s frequent director Mark Sandrich (Top Hat, Shall We Dance?) doesn’t let us down. The Irving Berlin numbers (each one connected to a different holiday) are winners. Crosby’s warm performance of “White Christmas” is a movie touchstone. –Tom Keogh
In 1942, Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby teamed up at Der Bingle’s Paramount Pictures for Holiday Inn, a black-and-white musical that proves more entertaining than Crosby’s color semi-remake White Christmas in 1954. Astaire and Crosby play partner/rival song-and-dance men who compete for the hand of their performing partner, played by Virginia Dale. After Crosby loses, he moves to the Connecticut countryside where he creates a resort that is only open on holidays and puts on the shows with the help of Marjorie Reynolds. Dumped by Dale, Astaire makes a drunken arrival at the inn on New Year’s Eve and dances with Reynolds. He decides she’ll be his new partner, but doesn’t remember what she looks like, setting off a frenzied search at every subsequent show while the once-bitten Crosby does his best to steer him off track.
Cast of characters in Holiday Inn
- Fred Astaire (The Band Wagon, Royal Wedding, Three Little Words)
- Bing Crosby (High Society, Road to Bali)
- Marjorie Reynolds (The Time of their Lives, Ministry of Fear)
- Virginia Dale (Docks of New Orleans)
Songs in Holiday Inn
- I’ll Capture Your Heart Singing
- Lazy
- You’re Easy to Dance With
- White Christmas
- Happy Holiday
- (Come To) Holiday Inn
- Let’s Start the New Year Right
- Abraham
- Be Careful, It’s My Heart
- I Can’t Tell a Lie
- Easter Parade
- Let’s Say It with Firecrackers
- Song of Freedom
- (I’ve Got) Plenty to Be Thankful For
- Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning
- Hollywood Medley
- Ending Medley