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| Holiday Inn | |
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theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mark Sandrich |
| Produced by | Mark Sandrich |
| Screenplay by | Claude Binyon |
| Story by | Irving Berlin |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Irving Berlin |
| Cinematography | David Abel |
| Edited by | Ellsworth Hoagland |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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100 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $3,750,000 (US rentals) |
Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. With music by Irving Berlin, the composer wrote twelve songs specifically for the film, the best known being “White Christmas“. The film features a complete reuse of the song “Easter Parade“, written by Berlin for the 1933 Broadway revue As Thousands Cheer. The film’s choreography was by Danny Dare. The film received a 1943 Academy Award for Best Original Song (Irving Berlin for “White Christmas”), as well as Academy Award nominations for Best Score (Robert Emmett Dolan) and Best Original Story (Irving Berlin).
In May 1940, Irving Berlin signed an exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures to write songs for a musical film based on his idea of an inn that opened only on public holidays. Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were the stars of Holiday Inn with support from Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Filming took place between November 18, 1941 and January 30, 1942. Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, Holiday Inn had its premiere at the New York Paramount Theatre August 4, 1942. It was a success in the US and the UK, the highest-grossing film musical to that time. It was expected that “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” would be the big song. While that song did very well, it was “White Christmas” that topped the charts in October 1942 and stayed there for eleven weeks. Another Berlin song, “Happy Holiday“, is featured over the opening credits and within the film storyline.
Filming outside the studio occurred at the Village Inn Resort in Monte Rio on the Russian River, in Sonoma County, California
Many segments of the film are preceded by shots of a calendar with a visual symbol of the given holiday. For November, an animated turkey is shown running back and forth between the third and fourth Thursdays, finally shrugging its shoulders in confusion. This is a satirical reference to the “Franksgiving” controversy when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to expand the Christmas shopping season by declaring Thanksgiving a week earlier than before, leading to Congress setting Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November by law.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii occurred halfway through filming. As a result, the Fourth of July segment was expanded beyond Fred Astaire’s firecracker dance to include the patriotic number that highlights the strength of the US military.
The song White Christmas
By CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
The song that would become “White Christmas” was conceived by Berlin on the set of the film Top Hat in 1935. He hummed the melody to Astaire and the film’s director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle. Astaire loved the tune, but Sandrich passed on it. Berlin’s assignment for Paramount was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging, due to his Jewish upbringing. When Crosby first heard Berlin play “White Christmas” in 1941 at the first rehearsals, he did not immediately recognize its full potential. Crosby simply said: “I don’t think we have any problems with that one, Irving.”
Although White Christmas has become iconic, this was not the original intention. The song Be Careful, It’s My Heart, played during the Valentine’s Day section of the film, was originally intended to be a bigger hit when production of Holiday Inncommenced.
The song is used during the Christmas holiday sections of the movie, most notably when it is introduced to Linda Mason (Reynolds) by Jim Hardy (Crosby) while she is trying to obtain a position in the shows at the inn. Hardy begins playing the song to her allowing her to join him and eventually perform solo. The song is also reprised near the end of the movie.Chrysotile asbestos was used to make the fake snow used this scene.
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