11.21.07
Holiday Inn
Just in time for the Thanksgiving, Holiday Inn, the best instance of Bing Crosby in blackface you can get on digitally remastered DVD!
No, but seriously, this movie is kind of adorable (blackface aside). Jim (Crosby), Ted (Fred Astaire - who’s IMDB url is 0000001! cool! And who is also, turns out, an awesome dancer!) and Lila (Virginia Dale) are all starring in a stage show, with lots of singing and dancing. Jim wants Lila to marry him and move to Connecticut to get out of show business and she keeps saying she will right up until she says “Um, no thanks, I’m going to stay here with Ted.” So poor Jim goes up to CT all by his lonesome and finds out being a farmer kind of blows. He decides to turn his farmhouse into an Inn that has stage shows, but is only open on Holidays (get it? Holiday Inn?). There is lots of singing and dancing and a hot blonde and some more conniving and threats to marry a millionaire, more dancing, Ted shows up, Ted steals the blonde, takes her to Hollywood, Jim realizes the blonde loves him, but she needs to be wooed so he goes to Hollywood and brings her back to CT and happily ever after. Then some more singing and some dancing. Hooray!