Holiday Inn (1942) - film review

Jim Hardy and Ted Hanover are a star New York song and dance act, but their partnership is about to end when Jim makes up his mind to drop out of the entertainment business so that he can run a farm in Connecticut.  Jim is aggrieved when the third member of their team, Lila Dixon, decides not to marry him and opts instead to continue her career with Ted.  Farming proves to be a harder occupation than Jim had bargained for, so he decides to convert his house into a dinner-dance club, Holiday Inn, that will only open on public holidays.  With the support of would-be dancer Linda Mason, Jim manages to make a success of his new business venture.  One day, Ted turns up at Holiday Inn, in an intoxicated state after being abandoned by Lila.  Before he knows what is happening, Ted is on the dance floor, dancing with Linda.  When Ted’s manager Danny Reed sees Ted and Linda together, he sees that fate has thrown Ted a new dancing partner.  But how will Jim react when Ted tries to steal another girl from him...?

A few timeless Irving Berlin numbers and the improbable but surprisingly effective pairing of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire is all it takes to gloss over the most ramshackle of plots and elevate Holiday Inn to the level of a minor Hollywood classic, a status it only just merits.  In common with many glitzy Hollywood musicals of this era, it is a pretty superficial affair with a nonsensical plot that has all too obviously been cobbled together around the musical numbers - not that this matters greatly.  Crosby’s vocal talents and Astaire’s nifty footwork offer enough to keep any audience entertained, and a few dollops of screwball-style comedy along the way don’t go amiss.

Holiday Inn was directed by Mark Sandrich with much the same flair that he brought to his previous musicals that featured Fred Astaire tripping the light fantastic with Ginger Rogers, notably The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935).   Rogers’s presence is missed here, but Marjorie Reynolds proves to be a fair substitute, excelling in her show-stopping dance routines with old Twinkle Toes.  Crosby is overshadowed by Astaire for most of the film but comes into his own when he breaks into song, particularly in the film’s best known number, the Oscar winning White Christmas, which became a chart-topping hit immediately after the film’s release.  Other memorable Irving Berlin numbers offered include Be Careful, It's My Heart and Easter Parade.

Today, the Abraham Lincoln musical sequence, in which Crosby and Reynolds perform as blacked-up minstrels, is deemed to be politically incorrect and is often cut when the film is aired on television - which is a shame as the sequence was originally intended as a sincere celebration of President Lincoln’s contribution to black emancipation.  The film was in production when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour occurred and the United States made the decision to enter WWII.  The impact of these events is felt in a spectacular montage sequence that serves as a rousing call to arms, without appearing overly jingoistic.  The film’s popularity on its initial release is presumably what led to it being remade (virtually) as White Christmas twelve years later.  Astaire declined to appear in this latter film and so Crosby was united, arguably more successfully, with Danny Kaye.  Whilst White Christmas is a more prestige production, offering more in the way of gloss and tinsel (it was famously the first film to be shot in VistaVision), it lacks something of the emotional heart of Holiday Inn, although both films can be relied upon to lift your spirits when the holiday blues kick in.

© Derek Adamson 2010

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