This holiday classic from 1942 serves as a sort of prequel to 'White Christmas", serving up one of its stars and plenty of terrific Irving Berlin tunes.
An impossibly young Bing Crosby stars as Jim Hardy, a popular nightclub singer in NYC that shares the stage with star dance man Ted (the amazing Fred Astaire) and Linda (Marjorie Reynolds).
When Linda chooses Ted in love over him, Jim (Crosby) decides to get out of the rat race of show business and open an inn far upstate New York. His dream is to only be open on the holidays and put on a great stage show to celebrate each of them.
When Linda leaves Ted, Jim meets a new young singer named Lila, Ted comes to visit the inn and falls in love with Lila and Ted's agent circles the inn every holiday trying to capitalize on at least one of them signing up, plenty of comedy and terrific song and dance numbers fill the picture.
Astaire is just amazing, every dance number is just as amazing as it was when filmed over 60 years ago.
Fred & Bing are a lot of fun as they battle over the affections of our female leads and Crosby sings perfectly, especially the holiday classic "White Christmas" which won that year's Academy Award for best song.
Some of the film has aged very poorly, suffice to say that the 'Lincoln" stage number performed for Lincoln's birthday is so racially offensive it nearly derails the entire film. It's like some horrible South Park parody inserted in the middle of the movie.
However, there's a reason this is a classic, and its all those great singing and dancing numbers courtesy of Crosby and Astaire.
The film was remade with a very similar story line 12 years later with Crosby and Danny Kaye, more songs by Irving Berlin as "White Christmas".
Seeing "Holiday Inn" fully digitally restored, remastered in color brings these stars to life.
It was a different time, but 90% of Holiday Inn holds up really well and still serves up holiday fun.
We'll give it a B.
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