I re-watched “White Christmas” last night in preparation for this year’s posting of my annual guide to the film, which will show up here some time in the next few weeks. I noticed quite a few details that I missed in previous viewings, including the material for a terrific (and tough!) trivia question that I have never seen posed before. Ready?
Ethics Alarms 
Oh, wow. This will be hard. I’ve seen “White Christmas” maybe once. So I’m going to take a shot in the dark….Charles Lane?
No, but wonderful guess, as Lane was a virtually ageless character actor who played essentially the same character in hundreds of movies and TV shows from 1930 to 1995. In IAWL, (you know this) he’s the auditor who tells Mr. Potter that he’d better do something about George Bailey and the Savings and Loan or “this smart young man will be working for him.” He’s not in “White Christmas,” but he could have been, probably as the sheriff who comes to arrest the Haines sisters.
My favorite role of his was in the famous episode of “I Love Lucy” in which Lucy has gone to the hospital to give birth. Lane is an expectant father in the waiting room grousing about how his wife has had 6 daughters so far and he’d very much like a son.
Then she gives birth to – not one, not two – 3 more daughters. Lane’s disgruntled, “Nine girls!” gets me laughing every time.
Lane is a prominent member of my “Whit Bissell Hall of Fame,” dedicated to character actors, like Whit, who never had leading roles or even major supporting roles, but who nailed a particular type and continued to play that type for decades in movies and TV. The Whit Bissell standard is a cut below the Ward Bonds (also in IAWL), John Carradines and Thelma Ritters, who played significant roles in major films but never as the stars. Lane was even more ubiquitous than Whit.
For some reason, I never connected Bert the Cop as being played by THE Ward Bond. And didn’t Ernie the cab driver play Dobie Gillis’ dad?
He did. A character that my father found constantly hilarious.
Were Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street named after them?
It’s a widespread theory, never confirmed or rebutted.
That’s a tough one. Since I didn’t know the answer, I had to search through each cast listing and I’m still not sure if I have the answer. Maybe our gang here can figure it out.
Yes, our gang can figure it out. There’s a grain of truth in that.
OK, you obviously know the answer: your last play on words virtually spelled it out. Come on—announce it loud and clear.
Cute subtle clue there….!
In the time of Google, traditional trivia generally doesn’t really work unless it’s in person, with no internet. It took about 2 seconds.
Well, this is an ethics blog, and I assume readers won’t CHEAT>..
True…& why I didn’t post the answer. It wouldn’t have been an honest win.
Nobody’s come up with the answer yet. Another clue: he also appeared in “The Ten Commandments.”
So you’re saying it’s not a she…
That eliminates Mary, Ma Bailey, Mrs. Hatch, Ruth, Violet, Annie and the Bailey daughters.
Correct. Another clue. And he was bigger than a bread box. Another clue: He was on his way down the ladder, not on the way up.
Hey 😉, I think I figured it out (with some cheating from the hints above)
Just for fun, I tried asking a couple of different AIs, and not only did they get the right answer, they were confidently wrong. One said “Jimmy Stewart” and another said “Danny Kaye.” On one I told it the answer was wrong and it agreed with me. An “I don’t know” would have been a better answer, but I suspect they are programmed to avoid that response.
(…like a lot of humans.)