Blu-ray Review Holiday Inn: 75th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

That's rather easy to do. To have seen it in the last ~30 years or so you pretty much had to have:

Had parents who were a fan and made a point to tape it off late-night airings and/or purchased the DVD
or
Been born before ~1960. After ~1970 it pretty much got relegated to late-night airings (along with many other pre 70s Christmas films).

Born in 1967 and I came upon "Holiday Inn" on TV in the late 80s or early 90s.

Midday screening on a local channel!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That's rather easy to do. To have seen it in the last ~30 years or so you pretty much had to have:

Had parents who were a fan and made a point to tape it off late-night airings and/or purchased the DVD
or
Been born before ~1960. After ~1970 it pretty much got relegated to late-night airings (along with many other pre 70s Christmas films).

Once White Christmas came out, and was pushed hard in the 60s, Holiday Inn pretty much fell by the wayside. White Christmas has most of the songs from Holiday Inn (it was intended as a partial remake of the earlier film) and enough of a plot change to make it feel familiar yet still be new. I still remember the first time I saw White Christmas. I kept wondering where certain songs, that I knew were in the film, were. The farmhouse set is almost identical to that in Holiday Inn and many of the trappings are identical/similar enough that I truly thought I was watching Holiday Inn almost until the end of the film. I first saw White Christmas on a BW TV so there was no color to tip me off. So... if you've seen White Christmas you'll have several deja' vu moments when watching Holiday Inn.

One warning.

If you're PC sensitive there's a particular song section dealing with Abraham's Birthday (once a stand alone Holiday, now combined with Washington's and others to make "President's Day") with Crosby in blackface that now comes across as a bit racist. That same song has a section with the maid and her kids singing a particular line with a now verboten word once used to describe blacks (no, not the "N" word), but the term used was not at all uncommon during the slave years, which the song somewhat depicts. I do find that little bit with the maid and her kids somewhat charming (the kids are terribly cute) and am not bothered by the word (it's an archaic term and was when I was growing up, but it's appeared in hundreds of books and films). I've heard complaints about the way the maid talks. I think those are unfounded. I grew up in the South and knew lots of black folks who spoke in just that manner. It's dialect - something every race has, good and bad. The song is rather catchy, but I've never liked the blackface bit (I've never liked any of them and always wondered why they just didn't get black folks for such parts).

PC stuff aside, this is one of my absolute favorite Christmas/Holiday films.

Yeah, but you know I try really hard with movies - I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it at the very least. I asked my wife today and she's heard of it. So I just failed at life on this one

Coincidentally, my wife and I watched Cover Girl last night because she decided that she hadn't seen enough classic Hollywood musicals from that 1930s-1950s period. "Want to try Holiday Inn next?" was an easy sell.

So I just ordered Holiday Inn and White Christmas - both blind buys for me.

Thanks for the PC heads up on Holiday Inn. I try as best I can to watch films in the context they were created in, so I don't think it would have thrown me that much, but now that I know in advance I should be prepared enough that it won't take me out of the film.

 

[BobO'Link]

Yeah, but you know I try really hard with movies - I'm surprised I hadn't heard of it at the very least. I asked my wife today and she's heard of it. So I just failed at life on this one

Coincidentally, my wife and I watched Cover Girl last night because she decided that she hadn't seen enough classic Hollywood musicals from that 1930s-1950s period. "Want to try Holiday Inn next?" was an easy sell.

So I just ordered Holiday Inn and White Christmas - both blind buys for me.

Thanks for the PC heads up on Holiday Inn. I try as best I can to watch films in the context they were created in, so I don't think it would have thrown me that much, but now that I know in advance I should be prepared enough that it won't take me out of the film.

Wow! BOTH Holiday Inn *and* White Christmas as first time viewings! I'm a bit envious - but then I've been watching both since at least the mid-60s. Be sure to watch Holiday Inn first.

The producers of White Christmas had wanted Astaire (which would have been the third pairing of he and Crosby in a Irving Berlin musical) but he declined after reading the script. They then offered the roll to Donald O'Connor, who fell ill, dropped out, and was replaced by Danny Kaye. I've never been much of a fan of Kaye which caused me to mostly reject the film early on, but it's grown on me over the years. I really like the song "Snow" sung by Crosby, Kaye, Clooney & Vera-Ellen (the four main characters).

I was just looking over the song lists for the two films. They share far less than I'd remembered (keep in mind I don't watch White Christmas nearly as often as Holiday Inn) with only "White Christmas" and "Abraham" being in both, and "Abraham" is an instrumental in White Christmas.

Another, somewhat obscure, Christmas film you should consider is Christmas in Connecticut (1945). It's not a musical but is a excellent romantic comedy entry into the genre. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as an unmarried food writer living in New York whose articles about her fictitious Connecticut farm, husband, and baby are admired by housewives across the country. Her publisher is unaware of the charade and insists that she host a Christmas dinner for returning war hero Jefferson Jones, who read all of her recipes while in the hospital, and is so fond of her that his nurse wrote a letter to the publisher. She now has to come up with this fictional life to fool her boss and keep her job. Be sure to get the original, note the horrible made-for-TV remake. (It has a recent BR release which, IMHO, looks quite good)

Another excellent comedy, semi musical, film from Stanwyck, Ball of FIre (1941) should also make your "to see" list. It was directed by Howard Hawks, was co-written by Billy Wilder, and co-stars Gary Cooper. (This one is only on DVD)

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Ball Of Fire I know - I was assigned a paper in college and given the choice between writing about The Talk Of The Town or Ball Of Fire. I did the paper on Talk of the Town but watched both first.

 

[Matt Hough]

I'm glad Howie corrected himself about the similarities of the scores for Holiday Inn and White Christmas because, as he mentioned in his follow-up post, they are VERY different, and the plots really aren't similar either. Yes, Paramount recycled a standing set for the Holiday inn and the Vermont lodge owned by their former general, but the boys aren't vying for the same girl or only working on holidays, and each movie has its own considerable and unique pleasures.

 

[BobO'Link]

I'm glad Howie corrected himself about the similarities of the scores for Holiday Inn and White Christmas because, as he mentioned in his follow-up post, they are VERY different, and the plots really aren't similar either. Yes, Paramount recycled a standing set for the Holiday inn and the Vermont lodge owned by their former general, but the boys aren't vying for the same girl or only working on holidays, and each movie has its own considerable and unique pleasures.

Yet Paramount considers White Christmas to be a loose remake of Holiday Inn in spite of the slim similarities. Mostly the set and a few scenes. While both revolve around Inns, one is open only on Holidays and the other is almost bankrupt due to lack of customers and snow. The similarities were by design as Paramount hoped to capitalize on the popularity of Holiday Inn and create another hit. They succeeded.

 

[Matt Hough]

I don't know that "Paramount" considers White Christmas a "loose remake." In fact, in the audio commentary on the disc, Ken Barnes refutes the notion utterly that it is in any way a remake of Holiday Inn.

I think the song "White Christmas" was all the reminder Paramount needed to spur the public to see the new film.

 

[benbess]

I liked this movie overall, but as mentioned there's one section that makes for uncomfortable viewing today.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I liked this movie overall, but as mentioned there's one section that makes for uncomfortable viewing today.

I watched the movie with my wife the other day, first time viewing for both of us, but I had forgotten about the blackface thing so I didn't warn her in advance. I remembered that it was going to happen just before it did, and I guess I was prepared enough that it didn't really distract me, but it totally took my wife out of the film for the time it was on. On one hand, I am glad that the film remained intact on the disc, but on the other hand, I can understand if anyone wanted to skip over that number when watching.

I wonder what they did for the live musical version - can't imagine they did blackface for a recent Broadway production. Will have to check out that bonus disc one of these days.

 

[Matt Hough]

I watched the movie with my wife the other day, first time viewing for both of us, but I had forgotten about the blackface thing so I didn't warn her in advance. I remembered that it was going to happen just before it did, and I guess I was prepared enough that it didn't really distract me, but it totally took my wife out of the film for the time it was on. On one hand, I am glad that the film remained intact on the disc, but on the other hand, I can understand if anyone wanted to skip over that number when watching.

I wonder what they did for the live musical version - can't imagine they did blackface for a recent Broadway production. Will have to check out that bonus disc one of these days.

There's a bit of "Abraham" played instrumentally during the stage version, but the number itself is completely gone.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There's a bit of "Abraham" played instrumentally during the stage version, but the number itself is completely gone.

That's about what I expected. I figured maybe they could substitute a different song with some sort of Presidents theme but that even with the visuals removed, keeping the song itself would still be difficult.

Honestly, even more than the blackface in the musical number, the part I found more jarring was the scene that follows, where Bing Crosby is almost whining that he can't wear blackface again in the next holiday number. The reason he's pushing for blackface has to do with hoping that Fred Astaire won't notice that his partner is the Astaire has been trying to find, so it's not really that Crosby just has an insatiable desire to wear as much blackface as possible as often as possible. Still, to hear a grown adult whining about wanting to wear blackface, that pulled me out of the film for a moment. I understand both the reasoning for him wanting to wear it, as well as the context that it was considered acceptable and a normal way of performing at the time, and intellectually I can put it in that context, but seeing it for the first time just felt a little awkward to watch. Maybe part of it is that while I accept that blackface is part of the past, it never occurred to me that people would want to do it (as opposed to, "that's just how we did things then and no one thought about it").

 

[Matt Hough]

They added so many other Berlin tunes from other sources that leaving out "Abraham" was a no brainer.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I wonder what they did for the live musical version - can't imagine they did blackface for a recent Broadway production. Will have to check out that bonus disc one of these days.

I didn't think the stage production offered an especially faithful reproduction of the movie - it loses "Abraham", of course, and it also axes/changes plenty of other parts of the film...

 

[ajabrams]

[QUOTE="BobO'Link, post: 4549332, member: 347524"

Another, somewhat obscure, Christmas film you should consider is Christmas in Connecticut (1945). It's not a musical but is a excellent romantic comedy entry into the genre. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as an unmarried food writer living in New York whose articles about her fictitious Connecticut farm, husband, and baby are admired by housewives across the country. Her publisher is unaware of the charade and insists that she host a Christmas dinner for returning war hero Jefferson Jones, who read all of her recipes while in the hospital, and is so fond of her that his nurse wrote a letter to the publisher. She now has to come up with this fictional life to fool her boss and keep her job. Be sure to get the original, note the horrible made-for-TV remake. (It has a recent BR release which, IMHO, looks quite good)

Another excellent comedy, semi musical, film from Stanwyck, Ball of FIre (1941) should also make your "to see" list. It was directed by Howard Hawks, was co-written by Billy Wilder, and co-stars Gary Cooper. (This one is only on DVD)[/QUOTE]

Another wonderful Stanwyck film with a Christmas theme(and one of my favorite movies of all time) is Mitchell Leisen's "Remember the Night" (1940) -- If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it. Beautiful work from all involved!!

 

[Keith Cobby]

White Christmas is my favourite holiday film, and always preferred to Holiday Inn (although also a really good film). Two others I always watch at this time of year are It Happened on Fifth Avenue and Cover Up (1949).

 

[BobO'Link]

Another wonderful Stanwyck film with a Christmas theme(and one of my favorite movies of all time) is Mitchell Leisen's "Remember the Night" (1940) -- If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it. Beautiful work from all involved!!

That, too, is an old favorite of mine. It costars Fred MacMurray, a favorite actor. I was fortunate enough to get a pressed copy when I picked up a copy from TCM. It's one of those MODs that got pressed for initial release (like Warner Archives does with "high demand" type titles).

 

[Osato]

[QUOTE="BobO'Link, post: 4549332, member: 347524"

Another, somewhat obscure, Christmas film you should consider is Christmas in Connecticut (1945). It's not a musical but is a excellent romantic comedy entry into the genre. It stars Barbara Stanwyck as an unmarried food writer living in New York whose articles about her fictitious Connecticut farm, husband, and baby are admired by housewives across the country. Her publisher is unaware of the charade and insists that she host a Christmas dinner for returning war hero Jefferson Jones, who read all of her recipes while in the hospital, and is so fond of her that his nurse wrote a letter to the publisher. She now has to come up with this fictional life to fool her boss and keep her job. Be sure to get the original, note the horrible made-for-TV remake. (It has a recent BR release which, IMHO, looks quite good)

Another excellent comedy, semi musical, film from Stanwyck, Ball of FIre (1941) should also make your "to see" list. It was directed by Howard Hawks, was co-written by Billy Wilder, and co-stars Gary Cooper. (This one is only on DVD)

Another wonderful Stanwyck film with a Christmas theme(and one of my favorite movies of all time) is Mitchell Leisen's "Remember the Night" (1940) -- If you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it. Beautiful work from all involved!![/QUOTE]

Finished white Christmas.
Watching holiday inn
Christmas in Connecticut is next!

 

[PMF]

Thanks to Matt Hough's review, I finally gave in the Holiday Inn.

 

[Rodney]

That, too, is an old favorite of mine. It costars Fred MacMurray, a favorite actor. I was fortunate enough to get a pressed copy when I picked up a copy from TCM. It's one of those MODs that got pressed for initial release (like Warner Archives does with "high demand" type titles).

Remember the Night is so good I purchased it thrice! Two DVD's and then the Blu-ray. A great film, and Mitchell Leisen is an underrated Director.

Original Release (2009)...........................LoC Remaster..................Blu-ray

 

[BobO'Link]

Oh wow! I didn't know there was a BR release!

EDIT..

I looked up that BR release. It's OOP and commanding very high prices!

I just don't understand titles like that going OOP...