Christmas Films--#6

As we continue our look at classic Christmas films, we come to #6 on our list—White Christmas [1954] by Norman Krasna, Norman Panama & Melvin Frank. How does this film differ from last week’s Holiday Inn? Well… not by much. Both are musicals, both are romantic comedies, both involve two guys and two girls sending and giving mixed signals before coming together, and both feature songs by Irving Berlin.

Of the two films, White Christmas is probably considered more of a classic—plus, it’s in color which helps for the modern movie going audience—AND it doesn’t have a blackface number [although one of its songs waxes on sentimentally about how they all miss those ‘good old minstrel shows’… code for blackface shows].

Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K2C0gcEV3Q

So the film opens in the fighting of WWII, where the two main characters meet before forming their nightclub act. They become successful at clubs all over and one night take a look at a sister act… and wouldn’t you just know it, each one becomes interested in one of the sisters. That interest, of course, doesn’t manifest itself at first, it takes lots of mistaken moments and misunderstood motives before the two couples can come together.

And that’s what romantic comedies do. Their job is to make it seem like these people will never get together, that things just won’t work out for them, and then, toward the end, it’s like “holy cow” maybe it can work out after all!!!

There aren’t many films in our world today that combine romantic comedies with musicals—and most of them come from Broadway… Grease being a prime example.

But what if the best musical ideas didn’t have to come from the theatre? What if you could take the classic romantic comedy plot, combine it with music [hey, you don’t have to write the songs, find a friend or struggling music student who’s hungry to hone their musical-writing ability to do the songs for you], and see if you can’t write the next classic Christmas musical.

Another interesting aspect of this film is how it came to be. The songwriter Irving Berlin was in Beverly Hills at Christmas and looked out his window at the typical sunny California day, and was dreaming of the snowy Christmases back east and wishing he was there.

White Christmas could be your blueprint for coming up with a plot. Two guys, two girls… mistaken assumptions, working at cross purposes, but coming together in the end. How? Well, that’s your job—finding a way to make it seem like the impossible could actually happen.

But remember, nothing’s impossible. And though this genre of the Christmas musical isn’t thriving today, it only needs one good film to spark lots of imitators—so if it’s your thing, get to work! And next week we’ll look at one last musical in our list of the top 8 Christmas films.

Copyright © Diane Lake

22Nov20

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com