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White Christmas: Difference between revisions
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''With the grandest son of a soldier of them all!]]'' }}
Take [[Bing Crosby]] and [[Danny Kaye]], mix in a bunch of [[Irving Berlin]] tunes, and throw in a light but solid plot to put them all together. That's more or less what
The plot is worth noting, though. The two leads play Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, a mid-level entertainer and a nobody who meet up as they fight in [[World War II]] in the same unit. In the wake of an at-the-front Christmas show thrown as a farewell to their respected leader, General Waverly, Phil saves Bob's life, taking an injury of unspecified degree in the process.
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* [[Body Language]]: Watch Bob and Betty's argument at Novello's, after Phil and Judy head off to dance. Despite the coldly angry words, with each exchange they readjust their seats and postures to get closer and closer to each other.
* [[Bowdlerization]]: Small in-universe example: the General has Bob skip a dirty word in a letter he's reading aloud.
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: [[Ed Sullivan|Ed Harrison]], who hosts [[The Ed Sullivan Show|one of the most popular variety shows in the country]].
* [[Costume Porn]]: Very low-key at times, and all but over-the-top at others. This is a film costumed by [[Edith Head]], after all.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Emma gets in some good zingers:
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* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: "If you're worried and you can't sleep/Just count your blessings instead of sheep/And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings."
* [[The Ditz]]: Doris Lenz, the "Mutual, I'm sure" girl.
* [[Dragged Into Drag]]: Although the extent of the feminine garb involved is a butterfly hair decoration, a couple silk scarves, a bracelet and a feathered fan, Bob clearly thinks of the stunt where he and Phil replaced the Haynes sisters as this.
* [[Dramatically Missing the Point]]: Betty is upset at what she thinks is Judy's betrayal at leaving the act to get married and Bob's double-dealing by exploiting the General for publicity for the show. Bob, on the other hand, realizes that ''something'' has upset her, but thinks it's because he's pushed their burgeoning relationship too quickly or in a direction she's not comfortable with yet.
* [[Dreaming of a White Christmas]]: Subverted, until the end.
** In case you're wondering, it isn't the [[Trope Namer]] -- that was ''[[Holiday Inn]]''.
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* [[Montage]]: Several, including a [[Time Compression Montage]] showing the progress of Wallace and Davis's joint career.
* [[Musical]]
* [[Non-Singing Voice]]: While Vera-Ellen (Judy) was not a bad singer, the producers still had all her singing dubbed by singer Trudy Stevens. (And not, as some sources claim, Rosemary Clooney in multiple [[Solo Duet]]s.)
* [[Pair the Spares]]: Judy and Phil deliberately invoke this in order to get Betty and Bob back together. {{spoiler|It doesn't go quite as planned. But they all end up as couples anyway.}}
* [[Peeling Potatoes]]: Phil and Bob's initial encounter with General Waverly at the Pine Tree Inn ends when Emma hands the general a sack of potatoes and sends him to the kitchen; he apologizes for ending the conversation, explaining that he's on "K.P."
* [[Pretty in Mink]]: The dresses at the end are trimmed with white fox and come with matching muffs.
** The fur wraps worn by all the wives and girlfriends of the soldiers showing up at the end.
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'''Bob''': Hmm. Sounds very... Vermonty.}}
* [[Shockingly Expensive Bill]]: See ''Undisclosed Funds'' below.
* [[Short Cuts Make Long Delays]]: [[Exploited Trope|Exploited]] in the opening minutes of the film when General Waverly instructs a knowing corpsman to "take the short cut" when driving his replacement back to headquarters, so that the men in his command can finish their Christmas celebration before being turned out for a full inspection.
* [[Showgirl Skirt]]: Judy wears a detachable one in the "Mandy" number.
* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: [[Tear Jerker|Singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" in the middle of a destroyed town during WWII to a group of sad soldiers]]. Singing the same song while it's snowing? Um...
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* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To ''[[Holiday Inn]]''. It was originally intended as a vehicle to reunite Crosby and [[Fred Astaire]], but Astaire considered himself retired at the time and the part eventually went to Danny Kaye and the script was dramatically re-written.
* [[Standard Fifties Father]]: Bob invokes the pipe, slippers, newspaper version of a husband when ribbing Phil, who has just (supposedly) gotten engaged.
* [[Suspiciously Apropos Music]]: Betty singing "Love, You Done Me Wrong" at the club in NY after her fight with Bob and her departure from the Inn Played with in that when Betty sees Bob is in the club, she tries to get the bandleader to play a different song (he refuses); and it's entirely likely the song is in her act ''because'' she's angry at him.
* [[Take That]]: ''Choreography'' is one big [[Take That]] against [[Martha Graham]] and the Modern Dance movement.
* [[That Reminds Me of a Song]]: [[Justified Trope|Justified]] as most of the movie is rehearsals for or performances of various stage shows and nightclub acts.
* [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich]]: Accidentally averted by Rosemary Clooney: during the dinner scene the first night they're at the Inn, Betty is the only one who visibly eats anything more than a spoonful of soup. In the commentary track for the DVD release, Clooney admits she was still inexperienced enough as an actress that she didn't realize she wasn't supposed to really eat the food on the table—which was genuine and edible—and ended up stuffing herself overfull during the retakes and different angle shots in order to maintain continuity.
* [[Throw It In]]: Bob's speech about the effects of sandwiches on dreams was completely improvised by Crosby.
** Much of Bob's odd lingo and slang was Bing Crosby's usual way of speaking applied to the script.
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'''Bob:''' [[Shockingly Expensive Bill|Somewhere between "ouch!" and "boinnnnnng!"]]
'''Phil:''' ''Wow!'' }}
* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: Perhaps epitomized by the early exchange between the Haynes sisters where it's revealed that their brother Benny is "out of the country" -- in ''Alaska''.
* [[Values Dissonance]]: What a difference
* [[Wakeup Makeup]]: Betty and Judy seem to go to bed with their hair still styled and wearing ''full make up''. That red lip stick isn't going to do any favors to your pillow, Betty.
* [[Weather Dissonance]]: The plot hinges on the fact that there's no snow. Vermont would normally be draped in snow by Christmas, but it's basically spring weather there. No snow means no business, and no business is bad for Waverly.
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[[Category:White Christmas]]
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Christmas Movies]]
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