50 Fun Facts About White Christmas Movie

Which crooner stars as song-and-dance man Bob Wallace?

He had already sung the title song on screen twelve years earlier, and this time he also owned 30 percent of the picture.

Who plays Bob's wisecracking partner, Phil Davis?

He was the third choice for the part and joined just before shooting began.

The snowless inn where most of the story unfolds is in which state?

The characters sing about the sleigh rides they expect, then arrive to find bare fields and an empty dining room.

What is the name of the inn the general runs?

He sank his pension and life savings into it, which is why the empty dining room matters so much.

The inn sits in which fictional New England town?

The whole reunited division ends up travelling there for the Christmas Eve show.

Rosemary Clooney plays which of the Haynes siblings?

It was her biggest film role; she later admitted she could not dance and had to take lessons during production.

Who plays the younger Haynes sibling, Judy?

It was her penultimate film; she made only one more, a 1957 British production, before retiring.

Which veteran character actor plays retired Major General Tom Waverly?

He was 50 at the time and had already won an Oscar for playing another military man.

Who wrote every song in the film?

He had first suggested making a movie around his song back in 1948.

Which studio produced and distributed the film?

The studio put up the entire $2 million budget but took only 30 percent of the proceeds.

The film was the first ever released in which widescreen process?

The negative ran horizontally through the camera, using twice the surface area of standard 35mm film for a sharper image.

The title song had first appeared in which 1942 film?

That film also gave its name to a hotel chain founded a decade later.

Which song earned the film its only Academy Award nomination?

Its lyrics never mention Christmas at all, yet it is played as a holiday standard every December.

The film's nominated ballad lost the Best Song Oscar to which tune?

Peggy King performed the losing Berlin song on the 1955 telecast anyway.

Berlin wrote the film's Oscar-nominated ballad after getting advice about his insomnia from whom?

He told an executive the song was one of the few times he wrote about something that had literally happened to him.

'Snow' reuses a melody Berlin cut from Call Me Madam, where it had which one-word title?

The original lyric was a patriotic anthem; a composer's demo survives on the CD Irving Sings Berlin.

Judy's singing voice was dubbed by which vocalist?

She was the wife of bandleader Dick Stabile and got the job on Clooney's personal recommendation.

Which number do Bob and Phil lip-sync in a clowning reprise, using the girls' feathered fans?

The horseplay was unscripted; the director kept it because it made the crew laugh.

During the opening air raid, Phil is wounded pulling Bob away from what?

Bob feels he owes Phil, which is how a reluctant Broadway star gets talked into a double act.

Bob and Phil serve in, and later reunite, which army division?

Bob summons its veterans on national television to surprise their old commander.

TV host Ed Harrison, whom Bob phones for help, is a stand-in for which real broadcaster?

The character was played by an uncredited Los Angeles radio personality, Johnny Grant.

Who plays Emma, the eavesdropping housekeeper?

She had played almost the same wisecracking housekeeper in two Doris Day films just before this.

Who directed the film?

He was born in Budapest on Christmas Day 1886, which makes him an oddly fitting choice.

Which future Oscar winner is one of the black-clad dancers backing Clooney's torch song?

Seven years later he won Best Supporting Actor as Bernardo in West Side Story.

The snapshot of the girls' brother Benny, 'Freckle-faced Haynes', is really which child star?

He is Alfalfa from the Our Gang shorts, wearing an army field jacket and jeep cap.

On top of a $200,000 salary, Kaye negotiated what share of the film's gross?

Crosby, Berlin and the studio split the remaining 90 percent three ways.

The film's theatrical rentals, the highest of any 1954 release, came to roughly how much?

That figure equals about $140 million in 2024 dollars and made it the top-grossing musical to that date.

'What Can You Do with a General?' was originally written for which unproduced Berlin project?

Berlin recycled freely for this score; another number came from a Broadway show and one cut song survives only on a box set.

The film opens with a soldiers' show in Europe on Christmas Eve of which year?

The general is being reassigned that night, and enemy bombers hit the camp moments after he leaves.

Wallace and Davis first catch the Haynes act at a nightclub in which state?

They only go because of a letter supposedly from an army buddy, which Judy actually wrote herself.

The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in which year's class?

Crosby's original 1942 recording of the song had already entered the National Recording Registry back in 2002.

The stage adaptation played its 2008-09 Broadway engagement at which venue?

The New York Times called it as fresh as a roll of Necco wafers found in a mothballed stocking; it still earned two Tony nominations.

Crosby's 1942 title-song recording, the best-selling physical single ever, sold above how many copies?

Add every other artist's version and the song's total passes 100 million.

Crosby first sang the song publicly on Christmas Day 1941 on which NBC radio program?

That was barely three weeks after Pearl Harbor, and the melancholy lyric hit wartime listeners hard.

The 1942 master wore out, so the commonly heard version is a re-recording from which year?

You can tell the remake by the flutes and celesta in the opening bars.

Crosby's original studio recording of the song, on May 29, 1942, took how long?

He reportedly told Berlin, 'I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving.'

On April 30, 1975, Armed Forces Radio played the song as a secret signal for what?

Americans in the city had been told that the song, played after a weather report, meant it was time to get to the helicopters.

Berlin's rarely sung opening verse places the singer in which sunny spot on December 24th?

The verse, with its swaying orange and palm trees, is dropped from almost every recording.

Why does Betty suddenly turn cold toward Bob?

Emma catches only Harrison's end of the conversation and concludes Bob plans to exploit the general on television.

What is keeping the tourists away when the group arrives at the inn?

The weather does not cooperate until the final number on Christmas Eve.

Who partnered Judy in 'Mandy', 'Choreography' and 'Abraham' because there was no time to rehearse Kaye?

He leads the ensemble troupe and is billed in the credits, unlike several later-famous faces in the chorus.

Clooney's record label barred her from Decca's soundtrack album, so who sang her parts on it?

Two rival 'soundtrack' albums came out; on Columbia's, Clooney duetted with her real sister Betty.

Clooney fell in love with which man after taking dance lessons from him during production?

She was married to someone else at the time; the two finally wed decades later in 1997.

The actor playing the general had won Best Supporting Actor five years earlier for which WWII film?

He played the middle-aged adjutant Major Stovall opposite Gregory Peck.

The same year the film opened, Kaye became the first ambassador-at-large for which organization?

He received the French Legion of Honor in 1986 for the decades of work that followed.

The film was meant to reunite Crosby with which dancer from their two earlier Berlin musicals?

He read the script, declined, and asked to be released from his contract with the studio.

Which star was signed to replace the dancer who quit, then dropped out ill just before shooting?

Berlin had already rewritten a duet as 'A Crooner – A Comic' for him and Crosby; the song left with him.

Crosby and Kaye recorded which Berlin song for the opening army show, only for it to be cut?

Their recording survives on a seven-CD Bear Family box set called Come On-A My House.

The showgirl Doris, with her catchphrase 'Mutual, I'm sure!', is played unbilled by which dancer?

She went on to become Fred Astaire's television dance partner in the late 1950s.

In the 1942 film, Crosby introduces the song as a duet with which actress, whose voice was dubbed?

The original script had her singing it alone; Crosby was added later.