Count Your Blessings

Last night while working, I just felt like re-watching White Christmas, the 1954 feature that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. If you can get past the overly-sentimental plot points — and Christmas is a fine time to embrace a little schmaltz — it's a pretty good movie. Danny Kaye's especially terrific in it, and it's interesting that he was at least the third choice for the role. Fred Astaire was originally supposed to fill that slot but he didn't like the script…or maybe he just didn't want to work. Donald O'Connor was signed but he had to withdraw due to health problems so the producers went to Kaye.

I always found it hard to believe that no one discussed trying to get Bob Hope in the part. A Paramount picture which called for a comedian who could dance and play Bing Crosby's partner and wartime buddy? How do you not try to get Hope for that? When I interviewed screenwriter Norman Panama for my Li'l Abner articles, I took a detour and asked him about this and he kept saying over and over, "Bob would have been so great, Bob would have been so great." Mr. Panama was in poor health at the time and was having huge memory gaps, and I'm not sure if he confirmed my hunch or not. I also wish I'd asked him what, if anything, Bob Fosse had to do with the choreography of White Christmas. I suspect the correct answer is "Nothing." It's been reported in any number of places that he did some of it but neither of the published biographies of Fosse mentions it. Perhaps more significantly, Rosemary Clooney did a commentary track for the White Christmas DVD and though she talks about the dancers and the credited choreographer, she never speaks of Fosse. She does point out that among the unbilled dancers are Barrie Chase and George Chakiris.

One thing which I find curious about the film is how filled it is with very simple continuity errors. You know…like someone's holding a glass that's half full of liquid in their left hand, the camera cuts to someone else, and then when it cuts back to the first person, the glass is full and in the other hand. There are so many of these that at least one class for wanna-be Script Supervisors uses it as a kind of training film, challenging students to see how many mistakes they can catch. Paramount was a big studio and Michael Curtiz was an experienced director…so how did so many bad match shots creep in? Beats me. But it says something about the performances that they manage to distract you from all the jump cuts.

Recently, the movie was turned into a stage musical with the interpolation of a few more great tunes from the Irving Berlin catalog. One production of it is currently in Detroit and another is in St. Paul. (In St. Paul, David Ogden Stiers of M*A*S*H fame is playing the General.) In theory, it will get to Broadway next Christmas…or maybe the Christmas after that or the one after that. I haven't seen the show but I've listened to the cast album and it sounds pretty good. There's some info over on the show's website along with some video clips that don't seem to play.

If you haven't seen the film lately and don't have a tape or DVD around, Turner Classic Movies is running it tomorrow morning at 6 AM Eastern time. Why are they running White Christmas the day after Christmas? Who knows? Maybe it's another one of those continuity errors.