![]() The first to go: “Lazy.” Only Crosby could get away with giving up showbiz for the bucolic life by singing “Lazy.” Anyone else needs a stronger “I want” song. There was no room in his Holiday Inn for three of the film’s dozen songs. “The style and sensibility of Guys and Dolls, both in its humor and its humanity, rubbed off on our book, I think,” he says. Mercifully blessed with a nostalgic tug for an era he never lived through-namely, the ‘40s and ’50-Greenberg spent the better part of the past three years in the best of both worlds, with his left hand writing the musical book for Holiday Inn with Chad Hodge while, with his right, directing a Chichester-to-West End revival of Guys and Dolls. ![]() Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Decoration Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Armistice Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ambitiously, he set out to celebrate New Year’s Day, Inauguration Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, Valentine’s Day, Washington’s Birthday, St. When the composer first played “White Christmas” for Crosby on the set, the singer shrugged and blandly assessed, “I don’t think we’ll have any problem with that one, Irving.” But, coming at the start of World War II, the song struck national chords of urgent, wistful yearning, and its melancholy melody-so acutely attuned to wartime-may have been a subliminal echo of an earlier personal ache: Irving Berlin Jr., his firstborn and only son, died in infancy on December 25, 1928.įive years later, Berlin thought up the plot that would unlock “White Christmas.” In As Thousands Cheer, a Broadway revue he did with Moss Hart based on newspaper headlines, there was a segment in which Clifton Webb stepped out of a sepia-tinted photo in the rotogravure section to introduce the world to “Easter Parade.” Figuring there were more holiday tunes where that came from, Berlin dreamed up a Connecticut inn open only on holidays-basically, a clothesline for him to hang his seasonal songs. The score was arguably Berlin’s best up to that point, but its mighty, tinsel-trimmed evergreen was slow to grow. Rather, they’d retire to their respective corners to do their own special art. Though a pair of song-and-dance men, they didn’t do much of that together. That was to be his haunting hymn to Valentine’s Day-the cautionary “Be Careful, It’s My Heart”-and it did hit the pop charts first, but it was soon leveled by a seasonal steamroller that charged on to become the best-selling single of all time, unrivaled till 1997 when Elton John turned his “Candle in the Wind” into “Goodbye, England’s Rose” for Princess Di’s funeral.Īnd if you cock your ear toward Studio 54, you will find that they are still singing “White Christmas.” This time, it’s for a stage version of Holiday Inn that is now in unseasonably early previews there for an unreasonably early opening on October 6.īryce Pinkham is The Groaner and Corbin Bleu is The Hoofer-present-day stand-ins for Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, who, in ’42, were a best-in-their-field match impossible to top. It hasn’t.īerlin’s win for Best Song of 1942 may seem a foregone conclusion now, but then it wasn’t the big hit anticipated from Holiday Inn. Walt Disney achieved that awkward feat six years earlier, and steps were taken to make sure it never happened again. Translation: For the second- and last!-time in Academy history, an Oscar presenter had to declare himself the Oscar winner.
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