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Those Were the Days
![white-christmas-movie-poster-1020283120[5]](https://cdn.ricochet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/white-christmas-movie-poster-10202831205.jpg)
After the end of the semester and a particularly awful work week, I finally got a chance to bake some cookies, put up my Christmas tree, and just generally do Christmasy things. One of these things was to watch my second favorite Christmas movie, White Christmas (feel free to inquire what my most favorite is).
I could listen to Bing Crosby sing all day — even if he did get that baritone timbre by smoking a pipe. I love classic movies, and sitting on my couch watching Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen spin around the dance floor one thought jumped out at me — “Gosh, I wish people still danced!”
Now, of course people still dance, but twerking like Miley Cyrus with a bad case of tardive dyskinesia doesn’t count as dancing in my book. I wish the classic ballroom dance forms were still common to the culture the way they once were. This summer, I took a couple ballroom lessons, and I have never felt more elegant than I did when I was foxtrotting and waltzing across the floor.
Then I started looking at the clothes the characters were wearing in White Christmas and thought, “Man, clothes were so much more flattering and tasteful back then.” A certain longing for days of yore crept over me.
So I’m curious — what aspects of times gone by do the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the Ricochetti long for a return of? What fashions, habits, and parts of culture do you fervently wish would be reinstated in contemporary society? Obviously, I would start with dancing.
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What is your favorite Christmas movie?
I miss men taking their hats off indoors.
The two must watch shows for us every Christmas:
Miracle on 34th Street (the original in B&W with Natalie Wood)
Touched By An Angel (the first Christmas episode with Randy Travis)
My favorite is A Tuna Christmas, which I do think is funnier if you’re Southern. It is a riot and a half. If you can get your hands on it, do.
As to your hats comment, I second that, and take it a step further: I wish men wore real hats again instead of beanies and baseball caps.
The best of all the Christmas movies is “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
Ms. Vicryl C.,
You live in Nashville? Find a square dance group. Not as elegant, but plenty of fun.
Well, some of the “cool” guys, like Jason R, do. But it seems that they (most of them anyway) don’t know how to take them off.
How about people dressing “up” to travel or to go to church? Grocery shopping, even.
I still take my hat off at the dinner table, including at restaurants, but I’ve never noticed that anyone cares anymore. And in church… which is ironic because people were expected to wear hats in church decades ago.
My little sisters watch A White Christmas every year and sing the song about sisters. Others in my family have to watch A Christmas Story (one even has the leg lamp). I gave my young niece Ernest Saves Christmas last year.
My preferred Christmas movie is probably A Bishop’s Wife (Cary Grant version). A Miracle on 34th Street (original) and It’s a Wonderful Life are good for the season too. Last night, I watched The Bells of St Mary’s. That and Going My Way seem appropriate this time of year, though they aren’t really Christmas movies. Really, this is a good time for old movies in general.
I miss the idealism of movies back then. These days, people are taught that idealism is childish and means avoiding reality. But idealism is actually just a focus on inspiration and clarity. And hats.
Very good one. We’ve had similar conversations on this before, but I’m a repetitive crank. So I’d add refraining from profanity even in casual public settings and youngsters’ offering their seats to the elderly and pregnant women.
Hats.
White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie. The singing, the dancing, Danny Kaye being Danny Kaye…
So that this doesn’t become another hat thread (thanks for the link KP). . .I miss TV networks going off the air overnight.
Is that dancing? Or is it choreography?
Most men who dance ballroom socially have some choreography for each dance that they know and will dance the same steps in the same order (because it is hard to do otherwise).
White Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie too. I watch this movie and think of the old days when I was a kid and watched my folks get all gussied up to go out on the town for dinner and dancing. They’d hire a babysitter and wouldn’t come home until late.
These days parents don’t hire babysitters, get dressed up (no, I mean really dressed up) and go out for a nice evening. Instead, the whole family hits the local steakhouse and you’d think (by the way everyone looks and acts) they think they were still in their own kitchen back home.
But I digress. White Christmas puts me in a nostalgic mood where the holidays were really special.
I’m happy enough to live in a time where I don’t need to wear a three piece suit to mow the lawn to be socially acceptable.
But the complete loss of formality is a loss to the culture. I wore a shirt and tie my first day at Wal Mart when I was 20. I was laughed out of the store by the slobbishly dressed management. It was the last day I wore a tie there.
White Christmas is continuity nightmare. Michael Curtiz was a hell of a director but the editing is horrendous. Coffee pots are put down and miraculously reappear in hands, people repeat movements two and three times, props disappear and return like magic.
Dean Jagger, who played the ‘old man’ was actually six months younger than Crosby. And Bing was almost 39 when the war broke out in 1941 and was refused for service. He tried to enlist but Secretary of War Henry Stimson politely told the crooner that, although he was within draft range, his services were better spent as a war bond salesman.
Danny Kaye was third choice for the role. Fred Astaire passed first because, while he and Bing got along, he was second in star power to Crosby. They made two films together (Holiday Inn and Blue Skies, both penned by Irving Berlin) and Bing always got the girl. Donald O’Connor was up next but got sick.
Next, you will tell us there is no Santa Claus.
Yes, ladies, those are high heeled shoes in the picture. That’s what women used to dance in before the glory days of feminism.
Ray, we still dance in heels.
(and yes, Jim Chase, the routines are choreographed)
I’d be just as happy if Vera-Ellen was doing the Boot Scootin’ Boogie.
Speaking of, she made a decent comedy with David Niven called Happy Go Lovely, available on Amazon Prime. Remember when comedies were kid-friendly?
My favorite Christmas show is Die Hard.
Don’t forget Gremlins.
Vera-Ellen of the impossible 17-inch waistline?
More trivia: She and her “sister,” Rosemary Clooney, grew up within 70 miles of each other (Cincinnati to Maysville, KY) and although she played Rosie’s little sister in the movie Vera-Ellen was 7 years older.
By the way, Vera Ellen must have the smallest legs and tiniest waist I have ever seen. But she can dance her high heels off when she is dancing with Danny Kaye.
EJ, you are right about the issues with the movie. The bigger and better my TV has become over the years has highlighted little things that I never noticed before on my tiny B&W Zenith that I had when I was much, much younger. I’ve noticed them over the years, but like most old movies that I love, I’ve come to look for the mistakes as part of the things that I love about the movie.
I took up dancing during the glory days of disco, but I never graduated to ballroom dancing, which I thought was really cool. But for the life of me, I can’t remember what my girlfriend (later my ex-wife) wore for shoes (maybe I should ask). I just have a general impression it was more flat than high heels. She started out doing line dancing. This was of course in the 70’s. I didn’t think people wore high heels in those days when they line danced. Of course, it could have been platform shoes. Those were ubiquitous in the 70’s. But for the record, I never wore platform shoes. I was already relatively tall at about 6 feet in normal shoes. I never realized how short my fellow male high school classmates were until they put on their sneakers in gym class. Nowadays, my height is probably average for guys younger than me.
My wife refuses to watch White Christmas. She says they just ruined Holiday Inn.
My wife and I took a lot of ballroom dance classes. It was as much fun as I’ve ever had.
Exactly. Thank you, Aaron! EJ just killed my hopes and dreams a little.
I heard the reason for the impossibly small waist and turtlenecks is due to Vera Ellen’s bulimia. She had to have surgery(s) to correct the damage done by her eating disorder, and it left her with scars on her chest and throat that she used turtle necks to cover up.
So I’ll add another thing I wish we would see a renaissance of: men being manly men, and women being feminine and elegant. I once saw a quote on this subject that I liked very much-
Now I have a machine gun too! Ho-ho-ho!
Still the best action movie ever made, and one that has always resonated with me, as a man, because John McClane is flawed:
OK, so the knot in my chest starts with the enormity of the tragedy inherent in “I want you to find my wife. Don’t ask me how. By then you’ll know how,” one of the most brilliant pieces of screenwriting I’ve ever heard, and ends with the admission that “I love you” is easy, but “I’m sorry” is nearly impossible.
Seriously, Bruce Willis and Bonnie Bedelia were so thoroughly believable it made the film for me. Just genius.
Speaking of manly men, I think John McClane is probably the most quintessential American hero since John Wayne. He’s tough but compassionate, simple but wise, assertive but not interested in power, and doesn’t let rules get in the way of justice.
But I think the ladies would prefer a little less “yippee ki yay” and a little more Cary Grant. To Catch a Thief Cary Grant, that is, not Bringing Up Baby Grant.
And yes, Contessa, I think the more a woman acts and dresses like a lady, the more inclined a man is to be a gentleman in return.