That holiday favorite, White Christmas, is one of those films that doesn't have a soundtrack LP per se. But it does have two albums with some claim to authenticity because they separately feature the movie's biggest stars, Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney.
Bing and Rosie recorded for different companies (Decca and Columbia), each of which wanted its own product to capitalize on the popular film. So Decca assembled a 12-inch LP with Crosby and his co-star Danny Kaye, adding Peggy Lee to take over the Clooney spots. And Columbia came out with a 10-inch LP that had Rosemary singing eight of the songs from the film.
In this post, I'll discuss the Irving Berlin songs from that 1954 film, and assess the treatments found on the competing LPs. My presentation follows the order of the songs in the film. The download, however, keeps the two LPs separate and in their original running order.
White Christmas - The Old Man
The first song is, appropriately, "White Christmas," with Capt. Crosby singing to front-line troops who are about to get a new commander to replace the beloved Gen. Waverly (Dean Jagger). Bing's poignant rendition is interrupted by the appearance of the general himself. The troops serenade him with "The Old Man" (apparently carefully rehearsed for just such an occasion). The song has some amusing tongue-in-cheek lyrics such as, "We'll follow the old man wherever he may stray / So long as he stays away from the battle's fray."
A version of "The Old Man" is included on the Decca LP, where it was combined with "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army," which appears much later in the film and will be discussed below.
Heat Wave - Let Me Sing and I'm Happy - Blue Skies
After the war, Crosby forms an act and then a production company with Kaye, who saved his life during the enemy attack that ended their Christmas Eve show. A montage shows them performing the Berlin oldies "Heat Wave," "Let Me Sing and I'm Happy" and "Blue Skies."
Once again, Clooney doesn't attempt these songs, but "Blue Skies" does turn up on the Crosby LP, yoked with "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show" and "Mandy," which again are from much later in the film and will be discussed below.
Sisters
Clooney and Vera-Ellen were cast as a sister act. Bing and Danny catch them at a remarkable outdoor night club in Florida presided over by Herb Vigran, a character actor who seemingly appeared in every other film and television show for decades.
Trudy Stevens and Dick Stabile |
Rosemary and Betty Clooney |
The Decca LP also includes "Sisters," here given to Peggy Lee, at the time a Decca artist and someone who had been considered for the Clooney part. Lee's sister act consists of Peggy doing a duet with herself, seamlessly. Both versions are very good.
The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing
Still at the Florida club, Kaye and Vera-Ellen do a romantic dance to "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing." Trudy Stevens again is the singing double for Vera-Ellen. As a dancer Kaye isn't terrible, and as a singer he isn't half bad, which is helpful because Decca had him do a solo for its LP.
The song also appears on the Clooney LP. She doesn't partake in the dance on film, except to sneer at the couple at the end. (Rosie's character is kind of a pill throughout a good part of the film.) Her version is quite good (as is her whole LP, for that matter).
Snow
The two couples end up on a train together heading to Vermont, where the sisters are booked at an inn. They look forward to the dubious delights of the winter weather in the song "Snow." (Berlin recycled this melody from a Call Me Madam outtake titled "Free.")
Peggy Lee |
I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show - Mister Bones - Mandy
The gang shows up at the Vermont lodge only to find there is no snow and no patrons. In a remarkable coincidence, Gen. Waverly turns out to be the inn's proprietor. He insists on the sisters staying and performing, and the Crosby-Kaye combo come up with the idea of putting on their show at the inn to attract customers.
This provides a convenient excuse to bring in some musical numbers, starting with a minstrel show, an atavistic tendency in musicals that hadn't died out yet, but here thankfully does not involve blackface. The setting provides an opportunity for Berlin to bring in two of his songs from the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919, "Mandy" and "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show."
In the film, Crosby, Kaye and Clooney sing in this sequence. On the Decca record, "Mandy" is yoked to "Blue Skies," as mentioned above, with "I'd Rather See a Minstrel Show" between the two, even though it is not listed on the LP's contents. It's been suggested that the Decca LP lifted these numbers directly from the soundtrack (sans Clooney) - I suspect that is the case.
On her Columbia LP, Rosie confines herself to a "Mandy" solo. She includes Berlin's original verse, which makes it clear that she is overhearing two lovers, not appealing to Mandy herself. The verse is not used in the film or on the Decca record.
Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)
Berlin's gorgeous ballad, "Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)," was the big hit from the film, and rightfully so. Crosby sings it incomparably, with such great feeling that it breaks through the reserve of Clooney. Their awkward kiss - interrupted by Waverly - nicely encapsulates both their relationship and Bing's ability to seem caressing in song and clumsy in the clinches. It's a wonderful scene.
Being the big hit it was, the number is done solo by Bing and Rosie on their respective LPs, which gives us two superior renditions.
Choreography
Back to the incipient stage show at the inn, we next have a specialty number for Danny Kaye, the clever but somehow distasteful "Choreography," in which Berlin and Kaye make fun of modern dance. ("Chaps who did taps / Aren't tapping any more / They're doing choreography.") In the film, Kaye's spoken intro is overdone, and on record his reading is even riper, if that's possible.
Robert Alton's choreography of this number is enjoyable, but you can't see that on the record.
"Choreography" seems tacked on to White Christmas to provide a specialty for Kaye, who was a last-minute substitute for Donald O'Connor. The latter would have partnered Vera-Ellen in the more intricate dance numbers. Those were beyond Kaye's ability, so the accomplished dancer John Brascia was pressed into service alongside Vera-Ellen for those spots.
It perhaps doesn't need saying that Clooney doesn't attempt "Choreography" on her album.
Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me
Through the intercession of the indispensable Mary Wickes, who plays the busybody major domo of the inn, Clooney thinks that Bing and Danny are going to use the general as to get publicity via a spot on the Ed Harrison (read: Sullivan) TV show. Disillusioned, she takes off for a solo engagement in a New York nightclub, leaving Bing and her sister behind.
At the Carousel Club, bandleader Dick Stabile talks her into doing her specialty "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me," even though Crosby is in the house to patch things up. It's a very good number, although Berlin has her sing, "To send me a beau / Who had winter and snow in his heart / Wasn't smart," when the icy one is actually Clooney's character.
Clooney does the song beautifully, both in the film and on her LP. The Decca album assigns the number to her counterpart, Peggy Lee, who also handles the number well. However, her singing is too sophisticated for the character and abstracted for the situation, poking fun at Berlin's lyrics, "As they say in the song / 'You done me wrong'."
The dancer above with Clooney is George Chakiris, who went on to a notable career as an actor, singer and dancer on the strength of his success as Bernardo in the London cast of West Side Story and in the 1962 film version, for which he won an Academy Award. [Correction - loyal reader Geoconno points out that Chakiris played Riff in the West End production.]
What Can You Do with a General?
The weakest song in the score is surely "What Can You Do with a General?", which somehow reconciles Rosemary to Bing, even though it does just what she was afraid of - it exposes the general as a failure when Crosby sings it on the Ed Harrison Show. The song contains such lyrics as, "It seems this country never has enjoyed / So many one- and two- and three- and four-star generals unemployed" and "They're delighted that he came / But they can't recall his name." Waverly of course isn't unemployed - he is the owner of an inn large enough to stage a major show. Also, this is taking place nine years after the end of the Second World War. The generals are still unemployed?