Holiday Inn

While classic films can be very prestigious and contain aspects that make them stand apart from films released in the modern age whether it be presentation, performance or narrative, these films of the past also often contain aspects of their time period which can not only run the risk of severely dating them but may also contain harmful and even offensive material that’d just hard for most people to stomach nowadays. This doesn’t have to be a total dealbreaker as some films are strong enough to at least warrant a view even with some questionable content (eyes may need to be half adjusted), but when the material doesn’t hold up anymore and the content (even if well executed) isn’t enough to distract away from the elephant in the room, it’s harder to find reasons to go back. The 1942 Paramount musical comedy, Holiday Inn, suffers this very problem, shifting from what was once seen as a charming holiday classic into a piece of outdated candy cane.

After performing their popular song-and-dance routine on Christmas Eve, the singer of the trio, Jim Hardy (played by Bing Crosby) prepares to leave the spotlight and retire to a life on a farm with his love and dancing partner, Lila (played by Virginia Dale), but is shattered to learn that she is leaving him to be with their other dancing partner, the notorious charmer Ted Hanover (played by Fred Astaire). After learning that the farming life isn’t as peaceful or as work averse as he’d hoped, Jim decides to spin his homestead into an inn that exclusively celebrates holidays, allowing him time to rest during the rest of the year while entertaining the masses on these specific dates. As news starts to spread about this niche but seemingly successful idea, sales girl and aspiring performer Linda Mason (played by Marjorie Reynolds) ends up meeting Jim and becoming a mainstay at the inn as a showgirl, but trouble comes knocking when Ted (in a drunken state after learning Lila left him for another man) dances with Linda before passing out and completely forgetting who she was the next day. With the fear that Ted and his agent, Danny (played by Walter Abel) will swipe Linda up and steal her heart (which is bad since he’s fallen in love with her), Jim tries to keep the two parties separate while also continuing his business.

Holiday Inn at its core isn’t a bad film, and was a big hit at the time (being the highest grossing musical of 1942 for both the U.S. and the U.K.), but the passage of time has not done it any good, with some erroneous factors which dampen what should be a feel-good experience, and general scripting, character and story problems that prevent this largely style-over-substance feature from covering up any of its blemishes

Released in the 40s by a big-name studio, featuring very popular names, and set within a genre that was all the rage at the time (lavish and excitable musical comedies), Holiday Inn nestles in very nicely with other popular sing-song flicks of the time, and has all the expected components to match them in popularity, like their lively personalities, clearly talented performers who can hold a tune and strut a jig while sustainably holding done a story, and production value that exaggerates reality in order to provide fantastical escapism without abandoning logic. It was certainly positioned to be a big movie of the time, being directed by Mark Sandrich (who had made several musical comedies for Paramount in the past), starred two of the biggest musical talents of the time with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, and featured music made by Irving Berling (a legendary song-writer who made several award-nominated pieces for movie and Broadway), but the movie doesn’t feel that remarkable even for back then. The film was written by Claude Binyon and adapted by Elmer Rice (two people who didn’t have that much experience writing for film), and it’s within the script where you can start to see how things would start to fall apart. While the premise is decent enough for a festive-themed movie of the 40s that only cared about the dazzle of its sets and performers, the story itself is pretty paper-thin and even kind of irritating, all centring around a pretty lame love-triangle that has no intrigue or investment as the movie never treats anything with enough drama to get people engaged.

While this more imaginative mindset isn’t entirely problematic as it lends well into the musical comedy genre, it means that nothing really feels that genuine and therefore, it’s hard to care about anything that’s going on, which is made doubly clear by how little effort was put into the screenplay. The directing does a nice enough job presenting the actors in a punchy and passionate light and clearly displays the dancing and singing in a nice fashion, but even if the dialogue is speedy and the tone is innocently jovial, it very quickly devolves into a set of routines barely stitched together by a forceful romantic affair that can feel pretty dull to watch after a while (made especially hard since the movie is almost two hours long, which it definitely didn’t need to be). On top of these outdated and cliched plot elements, the film also feature some uncomfortable elements of the past that aren’t as easy to scrub out (like an entire performance of blackface done by the two leads, which is just as disgusting as you’d imagine it to be), and while the idea of spotlighting a variety of holidays in one film could be fun, it’s not explored as extensively due to coming out in a pretty regressive time . The movie might mean well and doesn’t technically present itself poorly, but the passage of time makes a lot of its plot elements feel pretty unfulfilling.

These kinds of musical comedies weren’t known for their strong storylines or deep characters, and were mainly run by the production and costuming, choreography, song composition, and talent of the actors, and at the very least, Holiday Inn does have a lot of talented actors involved even if they are hampered with very weak roles. Being able to watch Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby in a musical together would be very appealing (especially since they would only do so one more time in 1946 with another Irving Berlin musical, Blue Skies) and their talents are on full display right from the start, with Crosby’s iconic style of singing being almost hilariously weighty and bold for such a light-hearted endeavour but still shows great command and control, and Astaire glides across the dancefloor with such elegance expected of such a talent. Their banter is also pretty effective, sharing good quippy chemistry that doesn’t entirely come together as both roles are kind of boring and even a little dumb (Jim wants to have a more relaxing and work-free profession, so becomes a farmer, the most labor-intense job available), but is enough to make their scenes together not a total slog.

The rest of the cast are certainly talented as well and do the best with what they’re given even when their roles are even blander and sometimes even more annoying than the leads. Marjorie Reynolds is frustratingly stuck with a generic love interest role as Linda, clearly having the singing and dancing abilities to be a scene-stealer, but is forced to act through very basic romantic scenes and conflicts to the point that most of her screentime outside of performing is just lovingly glancing at someone. Virginia Dale effectively plays the exact same role and suffers the same kind of problems, but isn’t used in enough of the film to be as insulting, Walter Abel plays a very stock and almost overly hoaky portrayal of an antagonistic manager, and Louise Beavers is tragically too good as the film’s stock mammie portrayal and really has a spirited energy that would’ve been very captivating if not stuck in such a restrictive and offensive archetype (at least there have been much worse examples).

What’s fun about this movie is also what makes it hard to claim it as a great Christmas film, as being a premise that focuses on many different holidays means it has a touch of variety and allows for a bunch of different song numbers that reflect said time, but also means that it can’t fully invest in one entirely and therefore, doesn’t contain the same kind of joyous nature and appropriately themed-messaging usually associated with Christmas. The season certainly has a grip on the film with its wintery aesthetic, log-cabin/woodland environment, and overall vibe (it also literally invented the song ‘White Christmas’), but needing to share with other holidays lessens its exposure, not helped by the fact that it doesn’t really dive into any of them (it’s all surface level stuff, which is a good way to describe this movie). It certainly has an inviting production, with all the production design by Roland Anderson and Hans Drier, and costume design by the great Edith Head, looking great and making a pretty small in scope idea and location look very elegant and grand, even if that does conflict with the logic of the movie (how this business would even be able to survive only opening on a select few days a year is ridiculous).

Most of the music definitely feels of the time period with the familiar instrumentation, showtune dance numbers, and ensemble accompaniment which all has a great sound and vibe that makes for a few memorable numbers, but that’s largely in the moment as once they’ve concluded, the songs themselves aren’t really going to be in your head for that long. Clearly, this wasn’t the case for the time as the soundtrack was highly regarded and White Christmas as well as the overall score for the film written by Robert Emmett Dolan were nominated for Oscars, but since this was the time when song sequences in musicals didn’t need to establish character or move forward the plot , but instead just be an excuse for a break away from normality, they don’t have much intrigue in the modern day unless they have elaborate choreography or a really good melody, and the choreography by Danny Dare, isn’t stylish or flashy enough to really stand out from the crowd.

Holiday Inn spread itself too thin with other seasonal celebrations to really feel like a Christmas movie in the normal sense, but even if did contain more, it doesn’t feel like there’s much here to satisfy modern audiences. It doesn’t technically do anything wrong and has some effort put into its production, character performances, and a few scenes that are nicely laid out and executed, but with a premise that isn’t fully taken advantage of, a script that presents a very barebones story with even more simplistic characters, and song numbers that don’t have enough razzle-dazzle to distract people from its problems, it’d be better to just check out the hundreds of other musical comedies of the era. May be a treat for some (if they can ignore the clear offensive elephant in the room), but for others, seems a tad bit outdated.