White Christmas, the Musical That Feared the Future

During the holidays I was re-watching the 1954 musical-comedy White Christmas. I remember watching that film with my family in the 1990s and it became a family tradition to watch it every year around Christmas-time. The funny thing is, the contents of the film are only loosely tied to Christmas. Although the entire film is set around Christmas and features the titular song "White Christmas" near the beginning of the picture and again at the climax, the rest of the film is a series of songs and comic situations that could have been told at any time of the year.

But the most recent time I watched the film, I noticed an odd connection between two of the Irving Berlin songs: "Minstrel Number" and "Choreography." The entire "Minstrel Number" is a nostlagic piece about how much fun minstrel shows were (thankfully, unlike the film Holiday Inn where "White Christmas" debuted, there's no blackface to accompany this number). "Choreography" is some kind of diatribe against avant-garde theater, with Danny Kaye as a satirical choregraphed dancer contrasted against Vera-Ellen's traditional stage dancing; wouldn't you rather watch Vera-Ellen tap dance than see Danny Kaye spin his arms around like a clock? (if you would, then I don't get you)

Now, I like both of those numbers - they're both very silly and Danny Kaye is top-notch in both productions. What I find interesting is that "Minstrel Number" is pining for the past - for a mode of entertainment that hadn't been in vogue for, at the time, decades. And also, you have "Choreography," which is suspicious and disdainful of what was popular on stage at the time. Irving Berlin's heyday began in the 1920s; perhaps his tastes calcified then and never really kept hep with changing tastes.

For another instance, you could look to the film the Band Wagon, which went to cinemas a year before White Christmas. That one features Fred Astaire as a performer who's enlisted into a deep re-interpretation of Faust that ultimately flops on the stage. The performers then rally together ("Gosh, with all this raw talent around, why can't us kids get together and put on ourselves a show! Maybe, we could find ourselves a barn or something.") and put on a production that's what audiences really want to see... another big song and dance show.

Now, the Band Wagon is really elevated by "the Girl Hunt Ballet," an impressionistic dance number based on Mickey Spillane's pulp fiction. But taken together, White Christmas and the Band Wagon give me the sense that musical producers in the 1950s were a bit worried about how to continue appealing to audiences. They knew what worked in the past - and those movies both succeeded at the box office - but perhaps they knew the writing was on the wall? The 1950s are remembered as the last really great decade of movie musicals, as the 1960s would be littered with so many high-profile musical flops that it seemed to taint the entire genre of films.

Knowing what lay ahead of musical films, I kind of want to reach into White Christmas, slap Irving Berlin in the face and tell him to stop pining for those ancient minstrel shows. Those creative decisions are so much of their time that I had no clue what "Minstrel Number" was pining for when I first saw it (answer: really racist old-timey humour) and I'm still unclear as to what exactly was being spoofed in "Choreography." The singing and dancing that accompanies those numbers overcomes their lack of relevance.

Old-Time Radio Christmas, 3 of 5: The Small One

Today's entry in quasi-Biblical old-time radio Christmas programs is the story "the Small One" by Charles Tazewell. It's probably the best-known story Tazewell ever wrote and he owes a lot to Mr. Bing Crosby, who presented the story as a Christmas special on his radio program. Bing went on to cut a record of his dramatic reading of the story and made reading it an annual radio tradition for some time.

The story concerns a small boy and a small donkey. The boy wants to spare the donkey's life by finding a new owner for the creature; he finally does so when the couple Mary and Joseph purchase him. I'm not sure where the tradition of Mary riding on a donkey to Bethlehem came from - it's not from the Bible. Not being Roman Catholic I do find it a little objectionable because Jesus himself rode a donkey into Jerusalem - it feels as though it's according Christ's divinity to Mary. Then again, it might be an innocuous piece of art, the animal chosen for its humility rather than any allusion to Palm Sunday.

You can hear Bing's original performance of "the Small One" on the December 25, 1946 broadcast of Philco Radio Time at the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library!

Boris Karloff Month Day 7: Bing Crosby

Welcome back to Boris Karloff month! Today I thought I'd look in on one of Karloff's comedy appearances. Karloff had a pretty good sense of humour and was certainly not afraid of making fun of himself. Many of his appearances on comedy shows tended to be alike one another; this time out I've chosen an episode of Bing Crosby from October 29, 1947. This was a transcribed program, as Bing was one of the first in radio to adopt transcription (he liked the convenience). Karloff shows up to help Bing celebrate Halloween and even sings a song with Victor Moore! Karloff was actually pretty adept at reading comedy - there's a moment where Bing starts to crack up, but Boris keeps to the script, a true professional! You can hear it at archive.org by clicking here!