Dreaming of a white Christmas in Austin is a little like leaving the porch light on for Ed McMahon and his Publishers Clearing House cronies — sweetly optimistic, but pretty damn deluded, too. That’s OK. General Thomas F. Waverly can commiserate. He owns the ski lodge in Vermont (central to Michael Curtiz’s 1954 White Christmas), where business is suffering ’cause it’s sunny and 75 degrees just a few days shy of the big day. That’s OK, too, ’cause Bing Crosby can help (with notable assists from Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen as the showbiz vets brought in to drum up some business, flurries or no). As far as Crosby Christmas movies go, this one falls way short of 1942’s Holiday Inn; blame it at least in part on the second bananas — Danny Kaye is no Fred Astaire. He’s no Donald O’Connor either, who was initially tapped to play Kaye’s singing Private Phil Davis. Still, the song & dance numbers are razzle-dazzle and kicky (especially the ones featuring Vera-Ellen, for whom the term “gams” seems expressly cooked up), and, as the deus ex machina snowfall makes its predictable third-act entrance, you can comfort yourself with the insider’s dish — that’s fake snow, y’know. Dream on.
White Christmas screens at the Paramount (719 Congress) on Monday, Dec. 16, at 7:30pm.
This article appears in December 13 • 2002.
