Everyone knows the song ‘White Christmas’ but how many know that it comes from this musical? Between that song and the appearance of stars like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, I thought this might make for an entertaining watch. Unfortunately ‘White Christmas’ is the only good song in here and the film itself is just mediocre. Having two male leads and no real female lead is an odd choice but what really kills it is the blackface performance later on and the inclusion of a stock ‘Mamie’ character. Between the two, it gives some bad vibes to the familiar ‘White Christmas’ song and the plot is just nonsense. Avoid.

Jim Hardy, Ted Hanover, and Lila Dixon are successful stage singers and dancers. One night Jim thinks Lila is marrying him and they are retiring together to a farm. Lila however has changed her mind and wants to continue performing with Ted. Jim tries to make a go at being a farmer himself and finds that it’s too much hard work. So he turns his farm into a holiday getaway retreat for city folk and puts on shows there. He manages to recruit Linda Mason, a flower shop girl who wants to sing and dance. They develop feelings for one another and manage to put on a successful show. Ted shows up one evening heavily drunk after he learns that Lila is leaving him to marry a millionaire. After dancing with Linda, he declares that he only wants her as his partner from now on. Fearing a repeat of what happened with Lila, Jim tries to hide her from Ted and his agent Danny Reed.

This is a plainly ridiculous story, made worse by how neither Lila nor Linda are real characters. They’re just objects for Jim and Ted to fight over and play off of. The idea of a ‘holiday inn’, a name which predates the current franchise of course, seems fine on the surface but then it seems like they’re not even letting guests stay overnight, just come over for dinner and a show which makes no sense at all. Sure Bing Crosby as Jim sings well but ‘White Christmas’, ‘Happy Holiday’ and perhaps ‘Easter Parade’ are the only really good songs. Fred Astaire is as great a dancer as always yet he doesn’t have someone decent to partner with here. The one interesting dance he has is when he is dancing drunk to comedic effect. The other songs and dances are cringey, with the lyrics including awkward words like ‘rotogravure’ in order to rhyme. There’s a patriotic US song that’s hard to watch today but probably made sense at the time because the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in the middle of filming.

This film might have been okay if Jim and Ted had more to their relationship beyond a juvenile rivalry or there was more depth to the female characters. There is a weird meta moment when the Holiday Inn is shown as a set recreated in Hollywood yet we as the audience know that it’s still the same set as it has always been. On the whole though, this is a weak film that is made even worse as it ages due to the awful ‘Abraham’ segment. I personally wouldn’t have thought that the song ‘White Christmas’ is objectionable, but its presentation here is so problematic that I won’t view the song in the same way ever again. There’s just no good reason to watch it.