L'amour chante et danse

"Holiday Inn" is the story of singer/dancer entertainers (Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Virginia Dale) who work together in New York. As the group splits up, one seeking a more tranquil life style, a third entertainer comes on the scene as a young aspiring singer/dancer (Marjorie Reynolds). Hoping to break into the business, she meets and begins work with one of the successful members. Relationships develop and change. This film (if it is not) should be an American classic. The music is excellent with performances of "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade." Both singing and dancing is very good (and what else could you expect with Astaire and Reynolds) and singing with Crosby. It is a warm, romantic film which depicts the celebration of many holidays. We use "Holiday Inn" as a staple, showing it several times during the Christmas season. Unlike many films from this era, it can be found is BOTH VHS and DVD. The DVD version includes both "Holiday Inn" and "Going My Way," another Crosby film. This is a great "feel good" film with a fantastic cast.

I am most certainly under 70 and I absolutely adore this movie! Fred and Bing are great together. The songs are some of Irving Berlin's best. With Bing's voice together with Fred's dancing...it is a first class classic! My sister & I always looked forward to watching this at the holiday season.

This movie has so much and if you can make the chemistry thing the sparking between Bing and Fred and ignore the sidebar romances that don't quite grab you, then you will truly enjoy it. "White Christmas" - the first performance of the standard and it always grabs me. And I must have seen it fifty plus times. The dancing scene with Fred and the firecrackers, stupendous, incredible, how DID he do it?? Forget the blackface bits, slightly offensive, even considering the era. And the rah-rah-rah for WW2. Evocative of 1942 and FDR. Everything comes together beautifully down to the encore of "White Christmas" and Bing in the best of voice all through. Story is just about zero and no credibility - imagine an inn open fifteen days of the year with an enormous cast for the floor show (with full orchestra, no less). Bankrupt after the payroll for one holiday would be my guess :>). But lovely and nostalgic and worth watching over and over, just for the boys, Fred and Bing. 7 out of 10.

The source of the song "White Christmas" would be worth watching just for that, but in addition the movie has a bunch of wonderful dancing, and quite a lot of charming songs; "I'll Capture Your Heart Singing", "Come To Holiday Inn", "You're Easy to Dance With", "Oh How I Hate to Get up in the morning", "White Christmas", and "Happy Holiday" (all by Irving Berlin) are some of the highlights.

Anyone who is a fan of Crosby or Astaire will enjoy this movie. Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale play perfect foils for Crosby and Astaire, supporting them.

The plot, what there is of it, is just enough to hang enough Muscial numbers on to keep the movie running along apace.

They don't get much better than this: Astaire with the drop dead dancing cool, and Crosby with the honey crooning, both competing for the same gal. Crosby decides to let it all go and settle in the country, then on a whim realizes he can open his country house as a club open on holidays only. The girl he ends up drafting for the floor shows ends up being the love of his life, and the dancing partner Astaire has always been searching for.

Astaire, Crosby, and Reynolds have great chemistry together: I thought it quite convincing how Crosby's overprotective zeal scared Reynolds away for a while, and Astaire was very cool and believable as a kind of an inoffensive opportunist who exploits Crosby's passionate responses to whatever threat he perceives in Astaire.

Top it off with many of Irving Berlin's best classic tunes, performed in interesting interpretations, and you have a very good musical film.