White Christmas

At the start of his surprise party, General Waverly blows out the candles on the cake at his table.

At the very end of the movie the candles are lit again.

In the hospital, Wallace is almost to the door when Davis calls him back.

Wallace sits down on the end of the cot, but in the next shot, he is seated beside Davis on the side of the bed.

The enormous chorus of singers and dancers in the musical numbers, not to mention the army of technicians and musicians required to put on the "little show" at the General's inn, are nowhere evident in the story scenes.

It would obviously take an immensely larger accommodation than the inn to house them, anyway.

Waverly comes to the stairs in the final scene and the women have stopped short of the stairs.

The camera moves to the wide shot and comes back to the general and the women are stepping back again.

The train that transports The Haynes Sisters and Wallace and Davis from Florida to Vermont is shown as being of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in one sequence, and of the Southern Pacific Railroad in another.

Neither railway ran on the east coast of the U.

The Haynes sisters go to bed in a drawing room, but wake up in berths.

(Since two separate trains are shown, this may have been done to suggest a change of trains - however, none is mentioned, and the "A" drawing room door behind which the girls were seen at the start of the trip is directly behind Phil and Judy as they watch Bob help Betty out of her berth.

) When Bob and Phil sit down in the club car, Bob puts a suitcase down beside the table.

When he gets up to tell the Haynes sisters off, the suitcase is not there.

The Columbia Inn Station Wagon that picks them up at the train station has a black and yellow California license plate when they are suppose to be in Vermont.

While the quartet is singing "Snow" on the train to Vermont, shadows of the crew and camera can be seen on the table's edge as the camera pulls back.

The firewood that Susan carries into the inn after the Haynes Sisters and Wallace & Davis arrive has one piece of wood sticking out at the bottom, but is gone seconds later.

During the "Mandy" number, Betty is seen at the top of the production number set then seconds later on the stage with the rest of the performers near the end of the number.

When Bob is singing White Christmas during the war scene, he has his hands on his belt and his index fingers keep changing positions between shots.

Right before the "Snow!" number on the train, the menu in the background is lying on its side.

At the start of the musical number, all four singers simultaneously look at the menu, which has now righted itself with no apparent help from them.

A full orchestra can be seen in the orchestra pit at the beginning of the dress rehearsal for "The Minstrel Show" number.

When the number is over, the orchestra has disappeared, even though they were playing just moments before.

When Davis and Novello are talking about the sheriff, Davis suggests that Novello continue keeping the sheriff busy and then pushes Novello through the door and follows him through the door.

However, when the camera follows Davis through the door, Novello is nowhere to be seen.

Before the "Count Your Blessings" song, Wallace is holding a sandwich up in one of his hands, but in the next shot, he's no longer holding the sandwich, and both of his hands are flat on the table.

Early in the film there is a scene from the control room for the Wallace and Davis radio show.

An engineer is seen sitting in front of the audio mixing console, but the VU meters that would show the level of the audio being sent out are not moving.

The railroad station and passenger cars are said to be in Vermont when in fact they are Southern Pacific Standard Design Station and SP Harriman coaches never used outside of SP service territory.

In the opening when Bob Wallace is singing 'White Christmas' the snare drum is visible but keeps disappearing and reappearing as the song continues.

At the Inn when Judy is trying to convince Phil they should pretend to be engaged she has him cornered on the couch and we hear him say the words 'I feel the same way about my cocker spaniel.

' His mouth says something else.

While Phil and Bob are lip-syncing the song "Sisters" (allowing Judy and Betty time to escape out the window), there is a phrase at the end that Bob ('Bing Crosby' (qv)) messes up on.

"Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister; and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!" Bing Crosby messes up on the last phrase and says "Lord help the mister" instead of "Lord help the sister".

It's very obvious that 'Danny Kaye' (qv) catches the mistake.

During the song "Snow" on the train, a close-up of 'Danny Kaye' (qv) shows his lips moving but the voice coming out is definitely 'Bing Crosby' (qv)'s.

This happens a couple of times during the song.

- PLOTAs she is complicit in Phil's effort to keep Gen.

Waverly away from the TV, Emma has clearly been informed why Bob is really going on the Ed Harrison Show, correcting her earlier misapprehension that Bob and Phil are going to make him a laughingstock on the air.

For some reason, though, she never connects telling Betty about that misapprehension to Betty's sudden departure for New York, and never tells anyone who could make use of the information why Betty left.

There are several "goofs which aren't" during the "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army" song.

Betty and Judy have pants on.

When the hometown character set flips up their pant legs are rolled up.

Some people consider it a goof that you never see them roll the pant legs up, but Betty and Judy have just been offstage for a few minutes, and come back onstage with their pants rolled up.

Bob and Phil are seen to produce hats "out of nowhere" to match their hometown characters - if the hats had been kept anywhere on their persons during the number up to that point, they would have made obvious bulges in their costumes.

But again, Betty and Judy just came back onstage, obviously carrying their own hats, and the four characters circle for a few seconds before the cutouts come up.

The girls could have passed over the new hats then.

When Bob Wallace remembered he had picked up a letter for Gen, Waverly, he says that the letter was from the War Department.

The movie was released in 1954 and the War Department had been changed to the Defense Department in 1947.

However, Captain Davis never served in the military under the Defense Department (having been mustered out by 1947), and would naturally call it by the name he knew.

When the General blows out the candles on his cake, the ones on the far side of the cake blow out obviously from another direction, and almost before he blows out the ones nearest him.

He wouldn't have had enough air to blow them all out at once from where he stood, due to the size of the cake.

When the girls on in their dressing room at the beginning of the movie, Judy puts the coffee pot down and in the next shot, she is holding it again.

Betty has the same male dancers at the nightclub as at the resort.

During the "Minstrel Show" number, the words go"Oh, Mister Bones! That's terrible!.

Ah, ha!.

Yes, Mister Bones, that's terrible!.

Oh, ho!" Watch 'Danny Kaye' (qv).

He flubs the lip-sync and mixes up the "Oh, ho!" and the "Ah, ha!" Apparently, 'Bing Crosby' (qv) and 'Rosemary Clooney' (qv) noticed because, for a few seconds, it looks like they're trying not to laugh.

But the pre-recorded soundtrack covers up any giggles that might have been happening.

A distinctive red bass drum used in the opening wartime scene at Monte Cassino as Captain Wallace performs White Christmas is conspicuously visible again just outside the dressing room of the Haynes Sisters at Novello's back in the USA several years later.

During "The Best Things" dance number, at the end of the number, on the very last twirl around a kneeling 'Danny Kaye' (qv) before she falls into his arms, 'Vera-Ellen' (qv) trips over Danny Kaye's outstretched left foot.

She recovers so smoothly that it is very difficult to catch.

- PLOTEarly in the movie when Bob and Phil go to The Florida Theater, they tell Novello they are there to see The Haynes Sisters.

Novello then goes to the girls' dressing room and tells them that Bob and Phil are there to see their act because the girls' brother had sent them a letter, but Bob and Phil hadn't told Novello that.

Near the end of the movie, Emma, Judy and Betty dash out of the far side of the entryway, supposedly to get to the backstage, in the opposite direction.

By the size of the 'inn' (set) it would have taken them several minutes to get there, yet Emma - within one minute - is calmly standing just inside the barn to welcome the General to his surprise.

When Wallace and Davis are meeting the General at his Inn for the first time.

Phil Davis is wearing a scarf around his neck that changes from across his chest to the right side of his chest and back again.

In the first dressing room scene, Vera-Ellen is pouring coffee for herself and Rosemary Clooney and clearly puts down the coffeepot.

When the scene cuts, she is magically still holding the coffeepot.

The boys appear to watch the Haynes sisters act from a seat next to the stage, but they are nowhere to be seen in the wide shots of the night club.

When the generals aide come to tell him that it is snowing, he gets up to go look.

Edna holds onto the granddaughter's wrist restraining her from getting up, but when the general opens the front door to look at the snow, Edna and the granddaughter are standing behind him.

When the girls come back onstage during the "Back in the Army" song, their pants are at normal ankle length, yet a moment later when the cut-outs are raised in front of them their pants are already rolled up.

When Wallace and Davis leave the dressing room after doing the "sisters" number, they leave the feathers they were holding.

However, when the girls sing for the first time at the Inn, they have them again.

I agree with most of the comments, except those of the negative type. You can't accept this movie as great, then you ate too much fruitcake.

My father-in-law had looked at me crazy when I said that I had never seen this film. It's now 2008 and I've watch this absolutely wonderful classic!

Are these comments for real? Do the authors realize that this movie wasn't made in the 21st century.

Every year at Christmas time we see that there's always one channel playing Irving Berlin's "White Christmas." Bing Crosby's follow-up film to "Holiday Inn" is cheesy good fun from near the end of the golden days of Hollywood.

"After ending up with a sisters act Betty and Judy Haynes (Clooney and Vera-Ellen), in Pine Tree, Vermont for the Christmas season, Wallace and Davis buckle down to help revitalize the inn owned by their former commanding officer in WWII, General Waverly (Jagger, embodying the star-spangle wholesomeness without a hitch), by bringing their entire hit musical to the place, a stunt will provide dear reminiscence for the retired general, whose livelihood is at stake if there is not enough patronage in this seemingly snow-less season, miracles, even a meteorological one will occur to save the day, gracing the festive atmospherics with a patriotic congratulation, but most importantly, it is an elderly military man's easily bruised pride that should be treated with kid gloves.

(Flash Review)Checking out some Bing Crosby over the holidays, he headlines this musical story of a pair of former soldiers who start up a song and dance act. Oh course he gets googlie-eyed around other female singers, they later team up for a four person act.

Nice story, nice embroidery around a classic song. Siblings, a dog, a lovely adventure and the desired White Christmas.

I have avoided this film for many decades, I prefer Roger's and Hammerstein Musicals and Musical Comedys, This film suprised me, the "Purple" Number with Danny Kaye was Funny and the Highlight of the film for me, And has me intrigued as why the Attack on Robert Helpmann ? Its seemed very personal.

To put the film in context -Elvis was releaseing Heartbreak Hotel just a couple of years later and the Beatles breaking in 5 years. Both those acts had nothing to do with spats, tap, hollywood "numbers" and idiotic set ups for "crooning" and smart chat.