Holiday Inn
At the start of this 1942 picture, two showbiz friends and rivals, played by Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, sing a duet about how they plan on wooing a woman. Crosby says that he’ll do it by singing, Astaire by dancing, and a funny thing happens over the course of the number.
We come to realize that Astaire is not just the better dancer. He’s the better singer, too. Yes, Crosby has the better voice, but every time he opens his mouth, it feels affected and disconnected. The impulse is to pull back from him. Whereas Astaire ... he just sounds normal, like he’s actually trying to communicate.
This sort of thing happens throughout. With the exception of “White Christmas” — this movie is best known for launching that Christmas classic — the Crosby numbers drag down the proceedings, but the Astaire numbers are always fun. (His best: “You’re Easy to Dance With.”)
This new Blu-ray set presents the complete movie in two versions, the original black-and-white and a new colorized version. I’ve seen the movie in black-andwhite before, so this time I watched the colorized version and liked it a lot. That is, I liked the colorization.
As for the movie, it’s an engaging product, typical of its era and elevated by Crosby’s non-singing breeziness and Astaire’s all-around brilliance, plus the appeal of Marjorie Reynolds, who has to pretend that she’s enthralled every time Crosby warbles something in her direction. Now that’s acting.
The premise of the movie is that Crosby starts an inn/nightclub that is open only on holidays, and for each holiday he writes and devises an entirely new show. Irving Berlin wrote the songs, and they range from bad (“Today is Washington’s birthday, and I can’t tell a lie”) to classic. Special features include a documentary retrospective of the stars. — Mick LaSalle