Holiday Inn

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds

Holiday Inn is a 1942 musical starring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, with music by Irving Berlin. It was the origin of Bing's most famous song, "White Christmas".

Jim Hardy (Crosby), Ted Hanover (Astaire) and Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale) are a musical act based in Manhattan. Jim wants to retire with Lila, to whom he is engaged, and live on a farm he's purchased in Connecticut. However, Lila (despite still wearing Jim's ring) actually loves Ted, and makes this clear to Jim at the last minute. So Jim retires alone to his farm... or attempts to.

After nearly a year of attempting to run the farm, a subsequent nervous breakdown, and a brief stay at a sanitarium, Jim returns to Manhattan on Christmas Eve to see his old friends. He has what he thinks is a brilliant idea -- he wants to convert the farm into an entertainment venue called Holiday Inn, which will only be open on holidays (hence its name). Ted and Danny Reed (Ted and Lila's agent) scoff at the plan.

Danny stops at a flower shop in the airport, where he is recognized as an agent by Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds) who asks him for a job. To brush her off, he directs her to Holiday Inn, and gives her a ticket to Ted and Lila's show. She goes to the show, as does Jim who pretends to be the owner of a big club. She, in turn, pretends to be a friend of Ted's and a celebrity. Ted and Lila come to the table after the performance, and Linda promptly flees before her deception can be revealed.

The next morning, Linda arrives at Holiday Inn, and she and Jim realize that both were fooling the other the previous evening. They sing "White Christmas" together, to fulfill Jim's promise to himself that he would sing the song at the Inn that Christmas.

On New Year's Eve, Holiday Inn finally opens to a packed house. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Ted finds that Lila has left him for a Texas millionaire, and goes out to Holiday Inn, thoroughly drunk, to commiserate with Jim. He dances with Linda, proceeds to bring down the house blind stinking drunk, and then promptly falls unconscious. Danny arrives at the Holiday Inn just as Ted is carried upstairs.

The next morning, Ted awakens at the Inn with a hangover and no memory of the previous night. Danny, however, is thrilled that Ted has found a new partner, but dismayed when neither he nor Ted can identify the girl. Jim, of course, knows it's Linda, but does not give any information away, as he fears that Ted will take Linda away from the Inn.

Then comes Lincoln's Birthday. In an attempt to disguise Linda, Jim decides that all of the performers and musicians will perform in Blackface. Ted and Danny return, and attempt to find Linda, but their search proves fruitless. Jim "sort-of" proposes to Linda, who accepts and declares that they are "sort-of" engaged.

At the rehearsal for Valentine's Day, Jim sings "Be Careful, It's My Heart" to Linda, who begins dancing. Ted and Danny arrive, and Ted dances with Linda. The music abruptly halts as Jim sees Ted dancing with Linda. Danny suggests that Ted and Linda open their new act at the Inn, on Washington's Birthday. Jim dejectedly concedes.

Washington's Birthday arrives, and Ted and Linda dance in elaborate 18th century costumes and wigs. However, whenever they try to kiss, Jim changes the music from the period minuet to jazz.

On Independence Day, Ted and Danny have arranged for Hollywood representatives to be at the Inn to determine whether or not Ted and Linda are suitable for film. Jim, overhearing their plan, bribes the hired hand Gus (Irving Bacon) to ensure that Linda does not arrive at the Inn. Gus picks up Linda in the Inn's car, and drives it into a pond. Linda attempts to hitchhike back to the Inn, and is picked up by Lila. Lila, it seems, has left her Texas millionaire after he turned out to owe millions rather than own them. Learning this, Jim summoned her to the Inn to re-partner with Ted. Linda drives Lila's car into the same pond where Gus is still stranded. At the Inn, Ted improvises a solo dance with firecrackers. Linda arrives, is furious at Jim, and accepts Ted's offer to do motion pictures with him. The Hollywood representatives want to make the film about Holiday Inn; Jim reluctantly agrees.

At Thanksgiving, the Inn is closed, and Jim is depressed. He plays his Thanksgiving song on the record player, and makes bitter self-deprecating jokes over the lyrics. His housekeeper Mamie (Louise Beavers) tells him to go to California and win back Linda.

In California, on Christmas Eve, Ted is prepared to elope with Linda after the night's shooting, which would complete the film. Jim runs into Ted and Danny, who realize what he is doing and attempt to lock him in a closet. It backfires, and Jim locks them in their dressing room. Jim makes his way to the sound stage and walks around the set, which is a recreation of Holiday Inn. He leaves his pipe on the piano, and hides. Linda enters the sound stage, and filming begins. She recognizes the pipe, and runs to Jim.

Finally, New Year's Eve at the Holiday Inn features a reprise of Jim, Ted, and Lila's old act, with Linda added in. Jim and Linda stay at the Inn, while Ted and Lila, reunited, go off to a life of showbiz.

It was turned into a stage musical in 2014 (reaching Broadway in 2016); some fans of the film feel it suffered Adaptation Decay in the process.

Holiday Inn is the Trope Namer for:
Tropes used in Holiday Inn include:
  • Accidental Innuendo: "The two of us, dedicating our lives to making people happy with our feet."
    • "What is this, a daisy chain?"
  • Ambiguously Jewish: Consuela Schlepkiss, a childhood friend of Jim's -- if she even existed at all.
  • American Accents: Gus has a fairly standard movie Down East accent.
  • Bedsheet Ladder: Ted and Danny use one to escape from Ted's upper-floor dressing room after Jim locks them in.
  • Black Like Me: Imposed on Linda by Jim for the show on Lincoln's Birthday, to keep Ted and Danny from identifying her.
  • Blackface: Worn by every performer and all the waitstaff on Lincoln's Birthday. It's particularly noteworthy because of the bizarre plot point where Jim decides only at the last minute that his fiancee Linda needs to perform in blackface (so as to hide her from his ex-partner during the show). Given that her prominent role in the show was as a very stereotyped pickaninny, it seems highly unlikely she was ever not going to be in blackface.
  • Book Ends: The film opens and ends on the night before a holiday (Christmas and New Year's). We have a musical number in both cases as well: Ted, Lila and Jim's nightclub act at the beginning, the finale in the Inn at the end. Also, both numbers are versions of the same song.
  • Christmas Songs: This is where "White Christmas" was born, folks.
  • Dashed Plotline: With the exception of Jim's "failed farming" montage, all of the action in the film takes place on holidays across the span of about two years.
  • Dawn Attack: Invoked for laughs when some of the spoiled peach preserves drop off the ceiling onto Jim and Ted; Jim murmurs, "Dawn patrol, eh?"
  • Deadpan Snarker: Jim and Ted both get in some good lines.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: According to Danny, Lila ran off with "a Texan from Texas".
  • Dreaming of a White Christmas: The song is sung twice, with the result that the trope name is uttered so often it ought to count as Arc Words. Also, of the three Christmases the film spans, two of them are snowy (the third is in California).
  • Driving a Desk: Seen twice on July 4: first, Gus (not) driving Linda to the Inn, and not long after, Linda riding with Lila.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: When Lila dumps Ted (by telegram), he orders scotch and soda -- "a bottle of each," according to maître d' François -- and consumes both entirely.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Fred Astaire's "Drunk Dance" New Year's Eve at the Inn: Astaire took a shot of bourbon before the first take, and drank two more shots before each subsequent take. What made it into the film was the seventh take.
  • Exact Words: Jim's comment to the director of the film-with-a-film, "I'll just stay in the background", turns out to be extremely literal when he secrets himself into the background of the set, instead of going somewhere out of the way of the production crew as the director no doubt expected.
  • Fictional Filming Procedure: The Oner being filmed at the climax of the film would be literally impossible to manage in the real world.
  • Freak-Out: Jim undergoes a breakdown when the stress of running the farm entirely by himself becomes too much for him, and ends up spending what is implied to be several months in a sanitarium recovering.
  • Global Ignorance: Inverted on a local level when Ted Hanover asks the maitre d' of a Manhattan club for directions:

François: The second time he came from his dressing room he asked which way is Connecticut.
Danny Reed: Connecticut?
François: Connecticut. He said he had a friend there who knows about women too.
Danny Reed: Why didn't you stop him?
François: How can I stop him sir when I don't know which way is Connecticut!

  • Gold Digger: Lila dumps Jim for Ted to keep making (more) money in show business. Lila dumps Ted for an unnamed Texas millionaire. Lila dumps the millionaire when she finds out he's actually broke. Can we say "Lila"?
  • Greed: Danny Reed. Lila, too, but Danny is crass about it.
  • Hangover Sensitivity: Ted demonstrates this on New Year's Day.
  • Hey, Let's Put on a Show: Jim's solution to what to do with the farm when it proves impossible for him to work it by himself: turn it into a nightclub!
  • High Concept: The movie was born from an abandoned idea Irving Berlin had for a Broadway show, which could basically be summed up as "Holidays: The Musical!"
  • Highlighted Text: The newspaper listings for the Inn's opening night are presented in this manner.
  • Hollywood Darkness: The location shots revolving around the "short cut" on July 4.
  • Hollywood New England: Midville, Connecticut. In 1942 it's incredibly rural, and the train stops only if you flag it down, but somehow it's still close enough that New York club-goers can get to it easily. It's probably a bedroom suburb of New York City today.
  • I Gave My Word: One of the reasons Linda gives Ted when he pressures her to leave the Inn to work with him is that she has promised Jim she'd be in the Inn's shows until the end of the year. She emphasizes "I promised" at least twice.
  • Idiosyncratic Wipes: A shot of an ornate calendar page zooms in on the appropriate holiday each time the movie jumps forward in time.
  • It's All About Me: Danny. His only reaction to Jim getting Linda back was, "The world can't do this to me!"
  • Jerkass: Danny Reed.
  • Lack of Empathy: Danny. In the wake of the July 4th fiasco which ended up with Jim and Linda brokenhearted, Ted obviously distressed about the breakup despite getting the girl out of it, and a movie deal in the offing, Danny's only thought is how happy he is for the movie deal, and he assumes everyone else is, too.
  • List Song: "Song of Freedom", Jim's number from the July 4th show, incorporates a list of American freedoms.
  • Love Triangle: First, Ted and Jim are both in love with Lila, who is also in love with both of them. Then, there's Lila seeing both Ted and the unnamed Texas millionaire, whom she eventually dumps Ted for. Finally, Jim and Ted both love Linda, who loves Jim and likes Ted.
  • Love You and Everybody: Lila claims something like this early in the film when speaking with Ted:

Lila: I love you... and Jim. I love everybody!

  • Mammy: Mamie.
  • Messy Hair: Jim's colonial-era wig during the Washington's Birthday show.
  • Minstrel Show: The Lincoln's Birthday show. Right down to the blackface and dialect.
  • Mock Millionaire: The act that Jim and Linda give each other when they first meet is basically this without props.
  • Montage:
    • Jim's "trying to run a farm" sequence
    • Ted and Linda in Hollywood.
  • Movie Within a Movie: They actually used the movie's sets as the sets for the movie-within-the-movie.
  • Multiple Choice Past: Played for humor in-universe by Jim, who makes several mentions of his youth, such as a friend named Consuela Schlepkiss who had high score on the local pinball machine when he was a kid, or that he started in show business as a bootblack.
  • Musical
  • My Friends and Zoidberg: Danny introducing the other characters to the Hollywood men on July 4th:

Danny: This is Ted Hanover and Linda Mason... And the owner, Jim Hardy.

Danny: How could he get that far in five minutes?
Ted: The lady must have been willing.

  • Object Ceiling Cling: Jim brings several jars of homemade peach preserves when he visits Ted and Danny after getting out of the sanitarium. Having spoiled, the jars explode, sticking several peach halves to the ceiling above them. Then a couple fall back down into him and Ted.
  • Off-Screen Breakup: Lila's breakup with the millionaire. We get it entirely second-hand.
  • Oh Crap: Jim's reaction when Linda finally makes it to the Inn on July 4.
    • Also, Danny and Ted when Jim shows up at the studio at the end of the movie.
  • The Oner: The sequence being filmed during the movie's climax is an immensely-extended single shot -- so much so that it could never be done in a real filming situation. For example, the director and cameraman somehow switch from an "exterior" boom camera to an "interior" dolly without interrupting the shot.
  • Pair the Spares: The only reason Ted and Lila get back together in last minutes of the film. Realistically, one would expect that neither Jim nor Ted would want anything more to do with her. (Come to that, Jim should probably never want anything to do with Ted again, either...)
  • Patriotic Fervor: A straight example in Jim's July 4th number.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: Every female performer on Washington's Birthday, but especially Linda. Linda's sparkly gown for the first New Year's Eve show is also impressive.
  • Pretty in Mink: Linda, during the filming of the movie-within-a-movie.
    • Ted's fur-trimmed coat on New Year's Eve.
  • Princess for a Day: Linda's description, almost word-for-word, of what it's like for her to perform at Holiday Inn.
  • Recycled Set: The Inn set serves double duty within the film -- first as the Inn itself, and then as its meticulously-crafted copy on a Hollywood soundstage.
  • Sassy Black Woman: Mamie is a very relaxed individual overall, but when she gets her dander up...
  • Second Act Breakup: And first, and third... hell, this movie is studded with breakups, all of which directly drive the plot. First, Lila breaks her engagement with Jim to be with Ted (allowing Jim to meet Linda). Then she breaks her engagement to Ted to run off with a Texas millionaire (allowing Ted to discover Linda and plot to take her from Jim). Then she breaks her engagement to the millionaire because he's broke (which makes her available to distract Ted from Linda). Jim and Linda's sort-of engagement is broken as part of the July 4th debacle (which is the real Second Act Breakup, because it sets the stage for the conclusion of the film). And then Jim finally returns the favor by breaking up Ted and Linda by winning Linda back (plot resolution).
  • Self-Deprecation: Jim's bitter comments about himself and his life on Thanksgiving.
  • Short Cuts Make Long Delays: Exploited when Jim pays driver Gus to keep Linda from making it to the Inn for the Fourth of July show. When Gus takes an unexpected turn and Linda objects, Gus says "Short cut". When he makes another, he just tells her "Short cut... for the short cut." He ends up deliberately driving into a pond.
    • Linda later uses the exact same "short cut" to keep Lila from getting to the Inn the same evening.
  • Slime Ball: Danny Reed. A theatrical agent, he views everything and everyone around him in terms of profit and benefit -- his, foremost, with everyone else's as a minor afterthought -- when he thinks of them at all. It's obvious why Ted Hanover remains friends with him -- Danny's self-interest helps carry along his own schemes. But why Jim Hardy, a decent guy who's been sideswiped by Danny a few times, puts up with him is a mystery.
  • Slow Left Hand: During the first "White Christmas" sequence (pictured above), Bing Crosby's character Jim Hardy is allegedly playing the song on a piano, but his left hand is all but motionless through much of it.
  • "Somewhere" Song: "White Christmas".
  • Telegraph Gag STOP: Averted by Lila's telegram to Ted.
  • Tempting Fate: Danny, reassuring Ted on the last night of shooting:

Danny: What could possibly happen...
<Jim walks into Ted's dressing room>

  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Jim's inability to eat any of his Thanksgiving dinner (including what are obviously stone-cold mashed potatoes) becomes a plot point that launches the climax and resolution of the film.
  • Too Good to Last: Jim's exact words when he learns everyone else is in favor of the film deal.
  • Tropacabana: The majority of the action takes pace in the titular Inn. When it doesn't, it takes place mostly in nightclubs in New York City.
  • Values Dissonance: The "Abraham" number for Lincoln's Birthday: a minstrel show in Blackface and dialect, and Marjorie Reynolds done up as a pickaninny.
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Danny almost manages to complete a variation on this phrase, in the process bringing disaster down upon his plans for Ted and Linda.
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: Ted, on New Year's Day.
  • What Is This, X?:

Dance Extra: What is this, a daisy chain?
Ted Hanover: Sorry, we're just looking for the back of a girl we don't know...

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