Top Ten Greatest Parts of Holiday Inn (1942)

First I must set the stage: I'm home for Christmas break and that means a lot of movie watching. Imagine two to three movies a night. Movie watching is what my dad and I do, so when I come home a game ensues of "pick the movie" which usually takes up the better part of an hour before every movie that is watched. Sometimes, as with Holiday Inn, my mother feels strongly about a movie and so attempts to steer us away from watching said movie even though she isn't going to watch it with us.

Thus it was that multiple conversations surrounding Holiday Inn went like this:

Night 1
Me: Let's watch Holiday Inn!
Mom: It's not good. It's just another movie about a whiny guy.
Dad: Can't watch that one then.
Exit Mom.

Night 2
Me: Let's watch Holiday Inn!
Mom: Why would you want to watch that? It's awful.
Dad: Can't watch that one then.
Exit Mom.

Night 3
Me: Let's watch Holiday Inn!
Mom: Whiny, whiny man!
Dad: Can't watch that one then.
Me: I want to watch Holiday Inn! Mom, you're not going to watch it anyway!
Mom: Well that's true. But it's a bad movie.
Dad: You're mom doesn't want to watch that one.
Me: Mom's not watching!

Repeat scene.

You begin to have an idea of the epic quest it is to pick just one of the two to three movies that gets watched when I'm home.

But, eventually after much struggle and battle, we did watch Holiday Inn and my mom was right. It was pretty awful. In honor of the stupendous, marvelous, tremendous awfulness though I give you this top ten list. Keep in mind that every time something happened that upset me, causing me to cry out in horror, my father brought up Aaron Burr, the man that shot Alexander Hamilton on the grassy knoll. Why did he bring up Aaron Burr? I don't know. My best guess was to get me to stop screaming about the movie.

Top Ten Greatest Parts of Holiday Inn

10. Severe Lack of Surprise When His Fiancee Throws Him Over
It's hard to believe Jim, Bing Crosby, loved Lila all that much when he shrugs off her abandonment in the space of two seconds. And that's not an exaggeration.

9. Ted Hanover's Existence Seems to Rely Solely on Screwing His "Friend" Jim
It's almost like Ted, Fred Astaire, doesn't have a purpose if he can't ruin Jim's life. How is that a basis for a friendship, and why does Jim keep letting him hang around? Oh, that's right, cause Jim has no backbone and is more than a little emo.

8.Lila--The Gold-Hunting Man-Eater
She ends up back with her man at the end and it's a happy ending. Kind of. Really she's getting a little long in the tooth and she obviously needs to get someone to marry her before it's too late. Now that's true love.

7. A Madonna/Whore Complex That is Subtle Like a Semi-Truck
You gotta love a Madonna/whore complex that is so thoughtful as to even divide up the women according to hair color. Linda=Madonna=blond hair. Lila=whore=brown hair. That's the sort of consideration I appreciate in my movies.

6. Self Righteousness Following the Sabotaging of Your "Fiancee's" Career
Only Bing could sabotage his "fiancee;" the fiancee, by the by, he forgot he proposed to, and then get all self righteous about her destruction of his dream before she even says anything. My mom was right. He is whiny.

5. Two Men Who Have a Friendship Based on Stealing Women From Each Other
There are so many parts of this aspect to take joy from. Do we laugh because the women are objects waiting to be stolen? Do we wink at the friendship that seems not quite friendly? Do we root for men who hang out with each other only to ruin the other one's life? It's all just so cute and quirky.

4. A Black Cook/Nanny Named Mamie
She even has bad grammar. I mean, I know it's 1942 and we have to keep the time the movie was made in mind, but that doesn't mean we can't get a good laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

3. Dropping the Woman He "Loves" in a Pond Instead of Marrying Her
Jim doesn't marry the women he loves; instead he pays the cab driver to ruin their career and drop them in a pond in the middle of Connecticut. Cause that obviously makes the most sense. Gee Bing, it's a mystery why these women would leave you for Fred Astaire isn't it?

2. The Shameless Stealing of Another Man's Fiancee
This one's tricky as it speaks to the constancy of the women in the film, but regardless the entire film seems to revolve around one man stealing another man's fiancee the night before the marriage. Talk about romance and true love.

1. Blackface Song About Lincoln
Oh yeah. There's blackface in the song for Lincoln's birthday. The stereotype abounds with the sort of awful sublimity that is only possible in a time where racism is funny.