White Christmas (Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye)

(Amazon UK link)

Nearly two years ago, we were given several early classic DVDs by a friend who was downsizing. We’ve watched several of them, but had put aside ‘White Christmas’ for the festive season. So we finally decided to watch it. We knew the theme song, of course; but as far as we recall, neither of us had any idea what the film was about. 

We did know that Bing Crosby was one of the stars; we had not realised that Danny Kaye was the other main male lead. The two work together extremely well in this film, with Danny Kaye demonstrating his sense of humour and excellent comic timing more than once. 

The film opens in an army camp on Christmas Eve during World War II when a concert is happening. Bob (Bing Crosby) is clearly an experienced entertainer, and Phil (Danny Kaye) is a new recruit. Their major-general (Dean Jagger) is retiring, and is clearly beloved by the whole troop. We see some of the concert before bombing begins, and Phil manages to drag Bob away from a falling wall. 

Time moves rapidly forwards, and the two form a song-and-dance team which becomes extremely successful. There are some disagreements between the two; Phil thinks Bob needs a girlfriend, but they’re too busy performing to become romantically involved with anyone. Then they see a sister act: Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy (Vera Ellen) are finding it hard to make ends meet, despite being appreciated as a cabaret. 

Then they travel to Vermont, after quite a convoluted story-line, with plenty of low-key humour and some singing… and discover a hotel, run by their former major-general, which is failing due to the lack of snow.  So they plan to make it more popular…

There are some other storylines going on, including a romantic entanglement, and a growing friendship. There are misunderstandings, and disagreements, and an inevitable falling out. And there are some wonderfully comic scenes involving the hotel’s receptionist Emma (Mary Wickes). 

I was a bit concerned that the song-and-dance routines might be over-long; one or two of the other older musicals we’ve seen in the past couple of years had very long routines that, while very well done, added nothing to the story. But in ‘White Christmas’, they’re all a good length, and feel like part of the plot even if everything has to pause for a while during the songs. 

I wasn’t sure if the film was going to be in black-and-white, and was pleasantly surprised to find it in good quality colour. Apparently it was the first film to be made in ‘Vista vision’; I’m not sure what that is, but it was a landmark in improved quality. It’s hard to believe it was made over seventy years ago. Of course the clothes and lack of technology date the film, and the style of musical. But people don’t change, and the ending is, we thought very well done and quite moving, too.

The singing is great - though we learned, from the one ‘extra’ that we watched, that one of the female leads couldn’t actually sing, so her voice was dubbed throughout - and the dancing enjoyable to watch. All in all, we liked this film very much.

Most of the ‘extras’ were of little interest to us, but we did like the one interview with a much older Rosemary Clooney, looking back on the film and its production.

Rated U, and there’s nothing inappropriate for children, other than some quite revealing costumes in places, and extensive smoking. But that would have been entirely appropriate for the era. 

Recommended.

Review copyright 2025 Sue's DVD Reviews