Holiday Inn

Gina and I purchased 'Holiday Inn' (1942) at Walmart a few weeks ago. It's the first movie to have Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas' in it. The song went on to become one of the biggest selling songs in the history of music.

The movie 'White Christmas' was actually a remake of Holiday Inn. Though the movie White Christmas (1954) was in color, the first movie to be filmed in VistaVision, it isn't as fun and charming as Holiday Inn. Both movies though are well worth watching during the Christmas holidays.

We watched Holiday Inn last night. Kelsey needed to go to bed, but we let Katie stay up to see it. It was fun to see Katie reacting to this old classic. It was very enjoyable. By the way, the DVD we purchased has both the black and white as well as a newly colorized version in the case. There is also a CD with all the music from the film. The colorized version isn't the old Ted Turner colorized version - but employed a newer technique.

I will probably watch the color version while listening to the commentary. They've got some archived Bing comments in it that I am looking forward to hearing. I never really cared for colorization of black and white classics. Color had been around at that time - it was the choice of the director for the movie to be in black and white in the first place.

Yes, the name of the movie inspired naming the hotel chain.

I had the fire going all weekend long. It was a good little Christmas moment for me - watching this movie with Gina and Katie by the open fire. For some reason - Bing helps get me into the Christmas spirit.