White Christmas

Plot

In Europe in 1944, at the height of World War II, Broadway star Captain Bob Wallace and aspiring performer Private Phil Davis entertain the 151st Division with a Christmas Eve soldier's show. Major General Thomas F. Waverly, who has been reassigned, delivers an emotional farewell. Shortly after Waverly departs, enemy bombers attack. Phil is slightly wounded when he pulls Bob away from a collapsing wall. While recuperating in the camp infirmary, Phil suggests he and Bob form a double act; Bob dislikes the idea but feels obliged to try.

After the war, the two become famous as song-and-dance team Wallace & Davis. Success follows in nightclubs and radio, prompting Phil to pursue their producing musical shows for the Broadway stage. While the team performs in Florida, Bob receives a letter from an army buddy asking them to review his sisters' singing act at a nightclub there. The two watch the Haynes Sisters' act and meet elder sister Betty and younger sister Judy after the performance. Phil, wanting to marry off Bob, hopes he and Betty are mutually attracted. While Phil and Judy are dancing, Betty apologetically confesses to Bob that Judy actually wrote the letter. Bob humorously admires Judy's resourcefulness though Betty thinks he is being cynical.

Learning the sisters' landlord is falsely suing them for damages and has called the police, Phil gives them his and Bob's train tickets to New York City. The group flees to the train station. The girls get Phil and Bob's sleeping compartment while the guys sit up all night in the club car, much to Bob's chagrin.

The girls persuade Phil and Bob to forgo New York and spend Christmas in Pine Tree, Vermont where they are booked as performers. In Vermont, they discover that the lack of snow is keeping tourists away. Arriving at the empty Columbia Inn, Bob and Phil are aghast to discover that General Waverly is the nearly bankrupt owner, having invested his pension and life savings. Phil and Bob decide to stage a large musical at the inn, hoping to attract guests. Betty and Judy are included with the other performers. Meanwhile, Betty and Bob's romance starts to bloom.

Later, Waverly tries to rejoin the army but is rejected. To cheer up the crestfallen general, Bob hatches a secret plan to reunite their old army regiment. He calls TV personality Ed Harrison (suggested by actual columnist and TV host Ed Sullivan) to ask his help. Ed's idea would exploit the general's misfortune on national television and give free publicity for Wallace & Davis. Bob strongly rejects his suggestion, insisting there is to be no personal advantage. Unfortunately, housekeeper Emma overhears only Harrison's end of the phone conversation and believes Bob is indeed exploiting the general's misfortune. She tells Betty, who rebuffs Bob. Her sudden distant coolness baffles him.

Cast

Bing Crosby as Bob Wallace

Danny Kaye as Phil Davis

Rosemary Clooney as Betty Haynes

Vera-Ellen as Judy Haynes

Dean Jagger as Major General Tom Waverly

Mary Wickes as Emma Allen

John Brascia as John/Johnny, Judy Haynes' dance partner

Anne Whitfield as Susan Waverly, granddaughter

Uncredited:

Johnny Grant as Ed Harrison

Percy Helton as train conductor

I. Stanford Jolley as railroad stationmaster

Barrie Chase as Doris Lenz, showgirl

George Chakiris as Betty Haynes' background dancer

Sig Ruman as hotel landlord

Grady Sutton as hopeful dancing partner

Herb Vigran as Novello

Leighton Noble as Novello's (Florida) bandleader

Dick Stabile as Carousel Club bandleader

Production

Irving Berlin suggested a movie based on his song in 1948. Paramount put up the $2 million budget and only took 30% of the proceeds.

Norman Krasna had written the original story, which was intended for Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. When Astaire was ultimately replaced by Danny Kaye, comedy writers Melvin Frank and Norman Panama were hired to add special material for Kaye. Panama and Frank felt that Krasna's entire script needed rewriting, and director Michael Curtiz agreed. "It was a torturous eight weeks of rewriting", said Panama. Frank said that "writing that movie was the worst experience of my life. Norman Krasna was a talented man but ... it was the lousiest story I'd ever heard. It needed a brand new story, one that made sense." They rewrote the screenplay themselves at $5,000 a week.

Principal photography took place between September and December 1953. The film was the first to be shot using Paramount's new VistaVision process, with color by Technicolor, and was one of the first to feature the Perspecta directional sound system at limited engagements.

Casting

White Christmas was intended to reunite Crosby and Fred Astaire for their third Irving Berlin showcase musical. Crosby and Astaire had previously co-starred in Holiday Inn (1942) – where the song "White Christmas" first appeared – and Blue Skies (1946). Astaire declined the project after reading the script and asked to be released from his contract with Paramount. Crosby also left the project shortly thereafter, to spend more time with his sons after the death of his wife, Dixie Lee. Near the end of January 1953, Crosby returned to the project, and Donald O'Connor was signed to replace Astaire. Just before shooting was to begin, O'Connor had to drop out due to illness and was replaced by Danny Kaye, who asked for and received a salary of $200,000 and 10% of the gross. Financially, the film was a partnership between Crosby (30%), Irving Berlin (30%), Paramount (30%), and Kaye (10%)

Within the film, several soon-to-be famous performers appear. Dancer Barrie Chase appears unbilled, as the character Doris Lenz ("Mutual, I'm sure!"). Future Oscar winner George Chakiris also appears as one of the stone-faced, black-clad dancers surrounding Rosemary Clooney in "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me". Ensemble dancer John Brascia leads the dance troupe. Because there was no time for dance director Robert Alton to prepare Danny Kaye for all of the dance specialties, Brascia was pressed into service as Vera-Ellen's dancing partner throughout much of the movie, particularly in the "Mandy", "Choreography" and "Abraham" numbers. The photo Vera-Ellen shows of her brother Benny (the one Phil refers to as "Freckle-faced Haynes, the dog-faced boy") is actually a photo of Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in the Our Gang film series, in an army field jacket and jeep cap.

A scene from the film featuring Crosby and Kaye was broadcast the year after the film's release, on Christmas Day 1955, in the final episode of the NBC TV show Colgate Comedy Hour (1950–1955).

Paramount reissued White Christmas in 1960 with an entirely new ad campaign, removing all references to VistaVision and stressing the glamorous show-business atmosphere.

Music

"White Christmas" (Crosby)

"The Old Man" (Crosby, Kaye, and Men's Chorus)

Medley: "Heat Wave" / "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy" / "Blue Skies" (Crosby & Kaye)

"Sisters" (Clooney & Vera-Ellen)

"The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" (Kaye with Vera-Ellen)

"Sisters (reprise)" (lip synced by Crosby and Kaye)

"Snow" (Crosby, Kaye, Clooney & Vera-Ellen)

Minstrel Number: "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show" / "Mister Bones" / "Mandy" (Crosby, Kaye, Clooney & Chorus)

"Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)" (Crosby & Clooney)

"Choreography" (Kaye)

"The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing (reprise)" (Kaye & Chorus)

"Abraham" (instrumental)

"Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me" (Clooney)

"What Can You Do with a General?" (Crosby)

"The Old Man (reprise)" (Crosby & Men's Chorus)

"Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army" (Crosby, Kaye, Clooney & Vera-Ellen)

"White Christmas (finale)" (Crosby, Kaye, Clooney, Vera-Ellen & Chorus)

Reception

Box office

White Christmas earned $12 million in theatrical rentals – equal to $140 million in 2024 – making it the highest-grossing film of 1954. It was also the highest-grossing musical film at the time, and ranks among the top 100 popular movies of all time at the domestic box office when adjusted for inflation and the size of the population in its release year of 1954. Between the original release and subsequent revivals, the film grossed $30 million at the domestic box office.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 76% of 46 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "It may be too sweet for some, but this unabashedly sentimental holiday favorite is too cheerful to resist." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was not impressed: "the use of VistaVision, which is another process of projecting on a wide, flat screen, has made it possible to endow White Christmas with a fine pictorial quality. The colors on the big screen are rich and luminous, the images are clear and sharp, and rapid movements are got without blurring—or very little—such as sometimes is seen on other large screens. Director Michael Curtiz has made his picture look good. It is too bad that it doesn't hit the eardrums and the funnybone with equal force." Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News gave the film four stars, writing that "given an Irving Berlin score, a sentimental and amusing book by Melvin Frank and the two Normans, Krasna and Panama, a cast headed by Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen, not to mention Dean Jagger, Mary Wickes and dancer John Brascia in the supporting roles, and a production all wrapped up in Technicolor, White Christmas adds up to first class entertainment. There is a lot of talent animating this VistaVision production and the principals work hard to catch the interest of the audience and hold it throughout. Bing and Danny are well teamed and, with Rosemary Clooney's considerable help, sing the tuneful Berlin numbers with verve. Vera-Ellen dances delightfully with Kaye and Brascia." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times positively reviewed the film, describing it as a "great, big, physically glittering, two-hour Technicolor musical that sounds like a dream production with a dream cast." Dick Williams of the Los Angeles Mirror negatively reviewed the film, saying that it "suffers from an exceedingly lightweight story line engineered by the usually reliable team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank plus Norman Krasna. It has so few humorous lines in It, that it is all co-stars Crosby and Danny Kaye can do to conjure up an occasional chuckle."

William Brogdon of Variety wrote: "White Christmas should be a natural at the boxoffice, introducing as it does Paramount's new VistaVision system with such a hot combination as Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and an Irving Berlin score ... Crosby and Kaye, along with VV, keep the entertainment going in this fancifully staged Robert Emmett Dolan production, clicking so well the teaming should call for a repeat ... Certainly he [Crosby] has never had a more facile partner than Kaye against whom to bounce his misleading nonchalance." Harrison's Reports wrote: "Although not sensational, White Christmas is a pleasing entertainment. There are, however, spots where it becomes quite slow and boresome, the slowness in the action being caused by the many rehearsals in preparation of the big show. On the whole the action is pleasing and it puts the spectator in a happy frame of mind. The Irving Berlin songs are, of course, an important part of the attraction, and all are tuneful."

Home media

White Christmas was released on VHS in 1986 and again in 1997. The first US DVD release was in 2000. It was subsequently re-released in 2009, with a commensurate Blu-ray in 2010. The film was reissued in a 4-disc "Diamond Anniversary Edition" on October 14, 2014. This collection contains a Blu-ray with supplemental features, two DVDs with the film and an audio commentary by Clooney, and a fourth disc of Christmas songs on CD. These songs are performed individually by Crosby, Clooney, and Kaye. A "70th Anniversary" 4K Blu-ray disc was released on November 4, 2024.

Stage adaptation

A stage adaptation of the musical, titled Irving Berlin's White Christmas premiered in San Francisco in 2004 and has played in various venues in the United States, such as Boston, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Detroit and Louisville. The musical played a limited engagement on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre, from November 14, 2008, until January 4, 2009. The musical also toured the United Kingdom from 2006 to 2008. It then headed to the Sunderland Empire in Sunderland from November 2010 to January 2011 after a successful earlier run in Manchester, and continued in various cities with a London West End run at the end of 2014.