Review of White Christmas (1954) by Mark L — 16 Jan 2013

White Christmas has one or two great moments followed by almost two hours of boring, sappy and irritating plot and song. The movie opens with it's titular song as Bing Crosby sings to a troop of WWII soldiers as bombs explode in the background.

It is a great setup for the possibility of a great movie, unfortunately what follows is a "schmaltzy" story about two ex-soldiers wooing two homely women. As fate would have it Bing and Danny Kaye wind up in Vermont where they happen to end up staying at their ex-generals failing hotel.

To save the hotel Bing and Danny decide to put on a show and invite the troops back to pay respect to their beloved general. However Bing's woman is fed a false story about how he is going to exploit the general for his own gain and what ensues is the woman treating Bing like garbage without explaining why and then leaving.

Of course it wouldn't be a happy ending without the two getting back together yet the fact that she treated him like garbage for no reason is never mentioned nor is a sorry muttered. The movie ends on a high note with a bit of a tear inducing moment as the general walks into the theater where his unit surprises him.

However two brilliant moments don't make this a a good movie, nor can I see how this classifies as a Christmas movie other than the iconic song. Overrated is the appropriate term for this film.