White Christmas (1954)
White Christmas was supposed to be a sequel of sorts to Irving Berlin's Holiday Inn which starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. In fact, the set for General Waiverley's Inn is an exact remake of the Inn from Holiday Inn.
After reading the script, Astaire turned down the role. Donald O'Connor was originally tapped to replace him but had to bow out due to illness.
So producers at Paramount turned to Danny Kaye and so was born White Christmas. The cast also included Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney. It also had great character actors like Dean Jagger and Mary Wickes.
White Christmas was produced by Paramount Pictures and was directed by Michael Curtiz who directed such classics as The Adventures of Robin Hood and Casablanca. It features a musical score written by Irving Berlin including the perennial favorite, White Christmas. This was the first movie to be released in Paramounts VistaVision™ which was a new wide screen filming process at the time. This movie is filled with vibrant colors which were an integral part of musicals in the 1950's and adds to the holiday theme of the picture.
Here is a number from the film featuring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera-Ellen, and Rosemary Clooney.
Enjoy!
How did you get your title screen to look so good? I want to modify mine but don't know how!
By the way- love the blog. Thanks for giving me the heads-up! I linked your blog to mine. Thanks!
Hey Sallie,
Thanks for you comments!
What you have to do is go out and find a good xml blog template. Then you download it to your PC or Mac, then upload to to the appropriate spot on your dashboard which is located under layout, the edit HTML.
That's pretty much it. P.S. good christmas ones are hard to find so good luck!
Hi Robbie,
I just received my Anniversary 2 disc Special Edition of White Christmas about 2 weeks ago. It is one of my favorite Christmas Movies but I prefer my older DVD that Paramount released awhile back.
On my Anniversary Edition, I noticed that the audio is slightly out of sync. Though the color and contrast are better I don't like it when the audio is out of sync. I feel like I'm watching a "Godzilla" movie lol. There isn't any audio sync problems with my older DVD.
I haven't watched the second disc yet being I'm still unpacking and getting rid of things we no longer need but was wondering if you have the Anniversary Edition or not and noticed the audio sync problem.
It's the same with a lot of TV Stations since the "Digital Transition" We have DirecTV and also purchased the Analog to Digital Converter boxes in the event we lose signal from DirecTV due to bad weather and at least can still receive our local channels and the audio is out of sync with them too.
I've called DirecTV and our local TV stations and they tell me there isn't any problems and to reset my equipment, but the only thing that can be reset is the DirecTV receivers and it still doesn't fix the problem. There's a 2-3 second delay on some channels and it is very annoying.
Oh well, take care. I hope to be posting again before Thanksgiving if I have time.
CHRISTMAS ISN'T JUST A DAY IN DECEMBER, IT'S A WAY OF LIFE
Hi again Robbie,
Just reread your post and didn't realize that the Inn for White Christmas was an exact remake from the Inn from Holiday Inn.
I've seen both movies several times but being Holiday Inn was in B&W I probably didn't make the connection. Thanks for the added bit of information. I'll have to watch Holiday Inn again.
Hey Susan,
the version I have isn't the anniversary addition. That's strange the audio is out of sync. I bet they never noticed.
Hi Robbie,
I was surprised about it because of the reviews I heard about how the color was restored etc and I watched the 2nd disc last night and again, the audio was out of sync.
Another thing I was surprised about was they didn't mention that the General Waverly's Inn being an exact remakes of the Inn from Holiday Inn.
They talked about a lot of other things to do with the production etc, and even mentioned Holiday Inn but nothing about the set for the Inn.
There was an interview with Rosemary Clooney and she was talking about how she wasn't a great dancer and mentioned the Vera-Ellen wasn't a great singer and that Vera's voice was dubbed for the songs.
Oh well, the things you find out when they add special features.
Some facts come from different sources. I have found that little tid bit are deemed unimportant by some folks and so they get left out.
Hi Robbie,
I watched my older DVD version of "White Christmas" last night and I hadn't ever checked the special features on the disc until last night.
I noticed that they had the interview with Rosemary Clooney on that disc too as well as the Theatrical Trailer and the Theatrical Trailer re-release.
The audio was more in sync with the lip movement on the older DVD than the Anniversary Release.
It appears they rushed this out to make money for the holiday season and did a poor job on it. That's a shame. Christmas movies get a poor treating on their DVD releases.
Haste makes waste and the consumer gets a poor quality product.
In some ways, the older Laserdiscs were better at with the audio being in sync with the lip movement. The only drawback, was you had to flip the disc over to see the rest of the movie. And, in the event it was longer than 2 hours, you had to put in a second disc.