2025 Introduction

In the 2022 introduction I wondered whether the 1954 Christmas movie musical “White Christmas” was on the way out of the Christmas movie canon as anti-white racism took root during “The Great Stupid.”  I wrote, “If there comes a time when an innocent musical fable about kindness toward an old hero down on his luck no longer resonates because of the skin-shades of the characters, the values and priorities of American arts and society will have reached a dangerous level of confusion.”

I have been rather blue of late, and a dear friend (and old love) ordered me to watch “White Christmas,” her favorite movie, as a tonic. She was right, as usual: it helped. She had expressed annoyance with earlier versions of the Ethics Companion, arguing that a lot of my complaints were (and are) petty for a feel-good Christmas movie. I think she was right about that, too.

I think I enjoyed the movie more this year than in past viewings because I watched it with a house guest who had never seen “White Christmas” before, and hadn’t experienced the brilliance of the four stars, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen often enough to take them for granted. “Wow, what a voice!” he said of Bing. “Nobody dances like that any more!” he said after watching Vera-Ellen tap her way through “Mandy.”An ex-Marine, he got choked up when the old General gets the surprise of his life with many of his old comrades showing up at Christmas Eve to fill his struggling Vermont Inn.

Last year I noted that Bing Crosby had complained that the movie could and should have been better than it was. I agreed with him in my comments last year; now I’m not so sure. How, exactly, could it have been better? The cast was perfect; the sentimental ending works today as much as ever: my house guest was quietly tearful at the end.

One of the most ethical features of “White Christmas” was behind the scenes, an ethical act that allowed it to be made, undertaken by one of the most unlikely people imaginable, Danny Kaye.  Kaye was a major factor in launching my interest in performing, musicals, and comedy, but my research into the real man, when I was in the process of collaborating on a musical about his relationship with his wife and muse, songwriter Sylvia Fine, revealed that the real Danny Kaye was a miserable, paranoid, selfish, mean and insecure sociopath when he wasn’t playing “Danny Kaye,” which could be on stage or off it. In this case, however—and nobody knows why—the abused Jewish kid went to unusual lengths to save a Christmas movie.

“White Christmas” had been conceived as a remake of “Holiday Inn” with the same stars as that black-and-white musical, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Fred couldn’t do the project, so his part was re-written for Donald O’Connor, who became ill so close to shooting that there was no time to retool the whole script and have the film ready for its target holiday release. In desperation, the producers asked Kaye if he would play Bing’s sidekick even though it meant 1) playing a support, which Kaye had never done in a movie since becoming a star 2) playing a role that didn’t’ highlight his special talents (for those, watch “The Court Jester”), and 3) subordinating himself to Bing Crosby, who was indeed the bigger star and box office draw, and 4) most daring of all, exposing his own limitations by doing dance numbers created for Donald O’Connor. Kaye was not a trained dancer, just a gifted mimic and athlete who could do almost anything he tried to do well. Danny demanded $200,000 and 10% of the gross to rescue the project, but he still was doing so at considerable personal risk…and he didn’t need the money, because Sylvia was a financial whiz.

Everyone around Danny Kaye was shocked that he agreed to all of this. Not only did he agree, he also amazed everyone by not playing the under-appreciated star on set, by doing O’Connor’s choreography as well as he did, and by knowing how not to steal focus from the star, something he infamously refused to do on Broadway when he was in “Lady in the Dark” with Gertrude Lawrence.

“White Christmas” was the top grossing film of 1954 and the most financially successful movie musical up to that time. Kaye’s uncharacteristic unselfishness and characteristic versatility made that level of success possible. The secret of why Danny was on his best behavior was another one of his pathologies from an abused childhood: he was always in awe of the superstars like Bing Crosby, and felt inferior to them. (He wasn’t.)

Yes the movie works ; you just have to turn off your brain to fully enjoy it the way it was meant to be enjoyed. It has many high points, musical and comedic, for most viewer they justify the flaws, and we will never see the likes of Crosby, Kaye and Clooney again (and Vera-Ellen was no slouch). I miss all of them, which adds an extra bit of wistfulness to my annual viewing.

And whatever faults “White Christmas” may have, it’s whiteness isn’t one of them.

This is another sad Christmas for me.  Once again there will be no Christmas tree that takes me five hours to decorate, no festive banquet at a table surrounded by family and friends, no stockings or presents…just a big empty house with a needy dog and a lot of scary problems to solve and ticking time bombs to defuse. The sappy Christmas movie that ends with two happy couples, an old man being reassured that his life had meaning and Bing singing “White Christmas” is, as it was last year, just what the psych ward prescribed. I’m trying to count my blessings. What choice do I have? I have no sheep.

1. The First Scene

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