Review of White Christmas (1954) by Spencer S — 31 Dec 2014

One of the better known Christmas films, "White Christmas" is a huge scale musical that has little to do with Christmas. There's the eponymous song, which is featured twice in the film, but otherwise all the musical numbers have nothing to do with Christmas.

This is more of a Technicolor musical than it is a Christmas movie. The plot revolves around two former GIs (Crosby and Kaye) who work together as an act, putting on huge Broadway shows. They come upon an inn that's headed by their former general, which hasn't seen many people because there isn't any snow, sad since it's close to Christmas.

The rest of the film features musical numbers from their famous two man show, which have nothing to do with Christmas. There's also two sisters (Clooney and Vera-Ellen), who help the GIs during the show.

The film is complicated by the GIs' romance with the sisters, which of course lends to misunderstandings, like in any good musical. The numbers are impressively huge, but they are strange as this era in Hollywood's history consisted of films influenced by large set pieces and huge ensembles, and less with coherent songwriting.

While this is still a valid film to watch at Christmastime, I would recommend "Holiday Inn" as a better option, which was the direct inspiration for this film.