White Christmas

Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye TV Shot
Originally uploaded by Walker Dukes

Bob Wallis & Phil Davis are old Army buddies that turned into a musical act after the war, one of the most successful and popular acts in the country. When Phil decides he wants Bob to get a girl so that Bob will be distracted and he can get a break from constant work the Haynes sisters seem like the perfect pair of girls to aid in Bob’s distraction. Judy Haynes and Phil team up to try and get Betty & Bob together and the boys follow the girls to Vermont where they find a lack of snow and their former General instead of the packed show and vacationers they are expecting. In order to save the General’s Vermont resort Phil & Bob hatch a plan to move their show to the resort under the guise of rehearsal and they incorporate the Haynes sisters into their act.

White Christmas is a Christmas classic and it deserves this distinction. I cannot go through a holiday season without watching the antics of Phil and Bob at least once. This is a pitch perfect film in casting, concept, and execution. The musical numbers a superb, the jokes funny and the chemistry palpable. This is the kind of movie that the American studio system of its day was known for, it is a grand, visual treat meant to entice viewers away from their televisions and into the theatre to experience a world they would want to be a part of.

For me one of the best things about White Christmas is the interaction between Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. As Bob & Phil the two are perfectly matched. Bing delivers his performance with the deadpan sentimentality of a crooner and experienced performer, and Danny Kaye combats Bin’s relaxed ease with a frenzy of humor, excitement and quirkiness that makes the pair a perfect odd couple and a treat to watch interact with one another. This is a pairing along the caliber of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, people that have perfect chemistry and know how to match one another in a way that plays incredibly well to an audience.

White Christmas is a film I think everyone should watch around the holidays. If this film can’t help get you into the holiday spirit, nothing can.

Director: Michael Curtiz
Writers: Norman Krasna & Norman Panama
Bob Wallace: Bing Crosby
Phil Davis: Danny Kaye
Betty Haynes: Rosemary Clooney
Judy Haynes: Vera Ellen
Major General Waverly: Dean Jagger
Emma Allen: Mary Wickes

Phil Davis: When what's left of you gets around to what's left to be gotten, what's left to be gotten won't be
worth getting, whatever it is you've got left.
Bob Wallace: When I figure out what that means I'll come up with a crushing reply.

Bad Day at Black Rock

Black Rock is the town that civilization forgot, they like to keep to themselves which is why it’s such a shock when the steamliner stops in their town for the first time in four years and John J. Macreedy gets off intent to spend 24 hours in the town. Macreedy soon realizes that something is lurking beneath the hostility of the towns residents, something that has to do with the man he is looking for, a Japenese farmer named Komoko.

Bad Day at Black Rock is a phenomenal movie, there is no other way to put it. The film itself walks the line between film noir and western and perfectly encapsulates the sense of anger and defeat that still existed shortly after WWII, and the stress of the McCarthy era on the time the movie was made. Surprisingly it deals with one very central theme, racism or how we let our prejudices generalize what we think about someone. This was a very heavy topic for 1955, the era right before the civil rights movement and when people were being questioned about “red” activity.

I have to say I am a sucker for the metaphor that a train or train tracks provide. Typically these symbolically present a sense of destiny, a fixed course that the character or characters cannot move away from, and Bad Day at Black Rock plays off this beautifully. Not only is Macreedy delievered into town via train but one of the pivotal conversations between the villains of the film takes place as they lounge on the tracks. These characters are locked into a pattern, a course that they cannot escape no matter what they try and it will be carried out to its very end.

One cannot help but notice the sheer greatness of Spencer Tracy in this film. He is a one-armed war hero trying to stay alive and uncover a mystery and he is awe-inspiring as John J. Macreedy. He is the kind of character that actors look back at now when they need to play the hard-as-nails good guy, the guy who can make you break out into a sweat before he even threatens to throw a punch.

Bad Day at Black Rock needs to be watched by anyone who has a love for classic cinema or wants to be entertained by a story instead of a concept. This film is a tense under ninety minute experience and you will not regret it.

Director: John Sturges
Writer: Millard Kaufman
John J. Macreedy: Spencer Tracy
Reno Smith: Robert Ryan
Liz Wirth: Anne Francis
Sheriff Horm: Dean Jagger
Doc: Walter Brennan
Pete Wirth: John Ericson
Coley Trimble: Ernest Borgnine
Hector David: Lee Marvin
Sam: Walter Sande

Doc: Four years ago something terrible happened here. We did nothing about it, nothing. The whole town fell into a sort of settled melancholy and all the people in it closed their eyes, and held their tongues, and... failed the test with a whimper. And now something terrible's going to happen again -- and in a way we're lucky, because we've been given a second chance.