HOLIDAY INN (FILM)

'''Holiday Inn''' is a 1942 film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, which featured the music of Irving Berlin.
In May 1940, Irving Berlin signed an exclusive contract for Paramount Pictures to write songs for a film musical based on his idea of an inn that opened only on public holidays. The song that would eventually become "White Christmas" was originally conceived by Berlin on the set of the film ''Top Hat'' in 1935. He allegedly hummed the melody to Astaire and the film's director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle. Astaire loved the tune, but Sandrich passed on it. Berlin's assignment for Paramount was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging. When Crosby first heard Berlin play "White Christmas" in 1941 at the first rehearsals, he reassured Berlin that he had created a winner.
Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were the stars of ''Holiday Inn'' with support from Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale. Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, filming took place between November 1941 and February 1942. ''Holiday Inn'' had its premiere at the New York Paramount Theatre in August 1942. It was a runaway success both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, proving to be the highest grossing film musical up to that time. The big song had been expected to be "Be Careful, It's My Heart." While that song did very well, it was "White Christmas" that topped the charts in October 1942 and stayed there for eleven weeks. The film's success can also still be seen today in the name of the international hotel chain Holiday Inn, which was named after the film.
Crosby and Astaire teamed up again in 1946 in the movie ''Blue Skies'' which was another vehicle for Irving Berlin's songs. The success of the song "White Christmas" eventually led to another film based on the song, ''White Christmas'', which was released in 1954 and starred Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.
The movie ''Holiday Inn'' is not shown very often on either network or cable television, perhaps in part due to the song about Abraham Lincoln, ''Abraham'', which was performed in blackface by Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds (although Turner Classic Movies has left the number intact during their screenings of the film for historical purposes). Some past network broadcasts of the movie have cut this musical number entirely

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★ Village Inn - the hotel actually featured as the Holiday Inn in the movie.