You can argue about which version of "A Christmas Carol" you prefer, or if "A Christmas Story" beats out "Love, Actually" in the modern era, but this film hands down is the best Christmas musical by a long shot. Choreography unofficially by Bob Fosse, "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" with Kaye and Ellen is one of the best dance routines on film, period. Crosby, Clooney and ensemble deliver a sentimental treat throughout that still delivers today.

I'd not watched "White Christmas" for a long time, and my (faulty) memory had it not quite rising to the level of "Holiday Inn," the other Bing Crosby Christmas musical from 12 years before. Happily, when I saw "White Christmas" yesterday at my local theater, it proved to be far superior to what I had recalled.Capt. Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Private First Class Phil Davis (Danny Kaye), both serving in the U.S. Army in World War II, starring in a musical comedy show for the troops in their outfit, lead a big good-bye show for Gen. Waverly (Dean Jagger), their commander, who is returning to the states. After the war is over, Wallace and Davis form their own singing-dancing duo and begin scoring well in live theater in the New York City area.They meet two other musical and dance performers, Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy (Vera-Ellen) Haynes, who are sisters, and, naturally, a double romance begins to brew. The four wind up at a "holiday inn," so to speak, in Vermont, and discover that the owner is none other than (retired) Gen. Waverly, whose bankroll is rapidly "getting small" because of no snow (in Vermont?!) and few customers.After several songs, both on stage and well-placed within scenes, Wallace gets in touch with a TV producer back in New York City, who agrees to set up a live TV show from the inn, which will be designed as a big tribute to Waverly (who must be kept "in the dark" until the trap is sprung).After some additional plot twists in which Betty gets mad at Bob because she thinks (incorrectly) that the show is going to be designed to poke fun at Waverly; and Judy tries to lure Phil into announcing a phony engagement between the two to try to get Betty and Bob back together; the movie finally climaxes with a giant Christmas show in the big dining hall at the inn, with many, many of Waverly's former subordinates from his Army career there with their wives; and the two show business couples finally falling into each other's arms. Good flick; good characterizations, although not terribly deep.Now: A few minor quibbles that kept me from giving it 10 votes:The opening scenes near the "battlefield" in France wouldn't have fooled a 5-year-old; the sets were very obviously in a Hollywood studio.Crosby's and Kaye's characters' names -- Bob Wallace and Phil Davis -- come on, guys! How Whitebread can you get? They needed a little more pizazz than that.Clooney's "lady in a snit, if you don't know why, I'm not gonna tell you" attitude when she thinks she has uncovered an unpleasant angle to the show being planned by Crosby. Why didn't she just tell him? Oh, I know why: It would have untangled the plot twists too soon.All in all, though, an excellent classic movie.

Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye play a pair of entertainers, who seem to be possessed of the songwriting talent of Rodgers & Hart plus the singing and dancing talent of..... Crosby and Kaye? Rosemary Clooney looks good and sings beautifully, and Vera-Ellen performs at her usual high-energy level (in several scenes she's paired with George Chakiris for dances that are clearly beyond Crosby and Kaye's skill level).The entire plot of the movie is that the sad-sack Dean Jagger is now sad because he's running a hotel instead of being a general in the army. Crosby and Kaye decide to put on a show to cheer him up, and Rosemary Clooney somehow becomes convinced that they are trying to embarrass him. That's it. Who cares? I guess. The musical numbers are pretty good, mostly dug up from Irving Berlin's endless box of old numbers from his "Music Box Revue" days.

This movie seems like a sort of excuse to give lots of singing and dancing opportunities to its various superstars, but underlying the merriment is a bit of pathos. It starts on a battlefield in Europe in the winter of 1944, and a soldier with a beautiful singing voice gently voices a prayer for a white Christmas that perhaps says more about the state of mind of the troops than any terrifyingly violent action film could say. The movie ends up being about finding love, self and some measure of contentment in the period after the war, and for that it packs more feeling than it first appears. For all of its clunky moments, it helps us find a meaningful Christmas.