by Marc Sandrich, 1942.
Starring Walter Abel, Fred Astaire, Louise Beavers, Bing Crosby, Virginia Dale, Marjorie Reynolds.
Rating: 8/10, 5.5/10.
No matter what, Holiday Inn had to be entertaining. Songs by Irving Berlin, sung mostly by Bing Crosby; dancing by Fred Astaire. It seems near impossible to go wrong with that combination.
And really, it doesn’t go very far wrong. The plot (all about Bing Crosby being in love with a girl and being mean to her, and Fred Astaire wanting to dance with her and being mean to her) is awfully silly and very clearly just an excuse to string together a bunch of Berlin songs about the holidays. But that doesn’t particularly matter; the film is manifestly not about its plot, but about the singing and dancing, which is, y’know, great. And there are some really funny moments, like when Fred Astaire is about to knock on Virginia Dale’s door but then runs and hides when Bing Crosby comes, which I suppose doesn’t sound all that funny but in the actual movie it nearly made me fall off the couch. And just about every scene with Walter Abel, as Astaire’s eccentric manager, was bizarrely hilarious.
Another, I suppose unintentionally, funny thing is the costumes and sets for the musical numbers. Those numbers are nearly all performed at Crosby’s Holiday Inn, an enterprise he’s just started which has great service and performances, but is just open on holidays. Throughout the film, he insists over and over that they have no money, no budget, and the creditors will be knocking down the door any time. However, the song and dance routines at each performance are hugely elaborate, with ridiculous amounts of dancers and background singers, all luxuriously decked out in costumes to match the holiday. The sets are equally elaborate. How Bing could afford all that, I do not know.
It’s interesting to watch this knowing that it was made during wartime. I remember wondering why the patriotic holidays—July Fourth especially, but the others, too—got SO much extra attention, until I remembered that. Speaking of the July Fourth one, it features definitely the best dance routine in the film, or at least the most memorable—Astaire, with an absent partner, and only rehearsed for a duo—and with Hollywood people in the audience, seeing if they want to bring the routine to the screen—has to improvise something great, so he grabs a handful of fireworks and puts them in his pockets. He shuffles on stage, dancing with his hands in his pockets, cigarette in his mouth and then—lighting the fireworks on the cigarette—taps his way across the stage followed by small explosions.
There is only one thing about the film that bugged me, and though it was a big thing, I feel it’s at least partly forgiveable. This is the strong streak of racism througout the whole thing. From Mamie (Beavers), Crosby’s black live-in maid, cook, and general servant, to her mostly silent children, to the blackface routine going along with Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday...well, it’s a bit much for a modern viewer. But, you know, the times, things were different, etc. Still, it’s kind of hard to watch—and occasionally awkwardly laughable—for today’s audience. Luckily, most scenes lack overt racism, so it’s pretty easy to forgive it (for me, anyway).