Holiday Inn (1942)

"Holiday Inn" begins as Jim (Bing Crosby) and Lila (Virginia Dale) are finishing their last song and dance show with Ted (Fred Astaire) before they retire to a farm in Vermont. Lila decides that she wants to keep working, dumps Jim and gets together with Ted. Jim goes to the country, and finding that he can't hack the country farm life, check himself into a sanatorium. While there he comes up with the idea of turning his farm into an inn that is only open on national holidays. On those holidays, they offer dinner and elaborately themed song and dance numbers according to which holiday it is. He pitches this to Ted, where he finds out that Lila dumped Ted for a millionaire, and they set it up. Before they get started, Jim meets a woman named Linda(Marjorie Reynolds)who ends up getting a job at the Inn. Ted tries to take her away at the Independence Day celebration and she goes with him to Hollywood to make a movie about the Holiday Inn. Jim is depressed about this and at he goes to Hollywood, confronts Ted and gets Linda back. Ted also gets back together with Lila as her rich boyfriend seems to have some tax problems.

This film has some great entertainment. Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby do a fine job singing and dancing. With it being an Irving Berlin movie, there are many of these song and dance numbers. The clothes that the ladies wear are absolutely beautiful! The set at the Inn is the same set for the Inn in "White Christmas". This movie is considered a Christmas movie although the only "Christmasy" part about it happens at the beginning and the end.

This movie is the first in which the song "White Christmas" is introduced. Today some of broadcasts of this movie have cut out the politically incorrect "Abraham" musical number because of it's depiction of a black face mistral show. Turner Classic Movies retains this part because of the historical value as well as the fact that they only show uncut versions of their movies. Interesting fact: The Holiday Inn's of today are named after the film.

101 Minutes. Not Rated. Black and White. I give this movie THREE STARS.