White Christmas... Starring Fred Astaire & Donald O'Connor

The plot of White Christmas went through several permutations before Danny Kaye joined the project.

Although Bing Crosby was necessarily attached to White Christmas from its conception, co-star Danny Kaye was a last-minute addition. He was called in days before filming was to begin to replace the ailing Donald O’Connor. O’Connor himself had also been a replacement—for Fred Astaire.

The project originated in 1952, with Paramount’s desire for a sequel to their 1942 hit Holiday Inn to be named after the picture’s hit song, “White Christmas.” Holiday Inn’s stars, Crosby and Astaire, and composer, Irving Berlin, showed interest. Berlin even had a time-saving idea for the story: “White Christmas” had skyrocketed up the charts to become the number-one single ever recorded, with much of its popularity attributed to how much the tune meant to soldiers off at war. 

Four years earlier, Berlin and playwright Norman Krasna had created a stage musical, Stars on My Shoulders, that was to be produced by Rogers and Hammerstein. Its plot focused on the post-war life of a retired general who—feeling forgotten—considers running for president, and is given a boost by his former soldiers.

Krasna went to work trying to recraft Stars on My Shoulders as a vehicle for Crosby and Astaire that would feature “White Christmas” as the title song. It didn’t have to play like a true sequel to Holiday Inn, but was to at least harken back to it.

Krasna’s first script, dated September 29, 1952, featured the “well-known song-and-dance team” partners Chuck (Crosby) and Johnny (Astaire). They are longtime friends, who have a friendly rivalry over women—though Johnny is more the playboy, Chuck the protective watchdog.

They are appearing in the elaborate revue Fancy Free in Miami, and decide to close the show until after the holidays. At a roadside diner, they meet Helen O’Conner and her kid sister, Judy. The boys are both taken with Judy, amusing Helen, who’s used to seeing men fall all over her sister. The girls, also performers, are finishing up a local engagement and have another booking lined up in Pine Tree, Vermont. But the girls have been unable to pay their hotel bill, and the proprietor is holding their trunk. 

Chuck and Johnny hatch a scheme to switch trunks and send the girl’s luggage to Vermont, COD. They then go to watch the O’Conner Sisters perform, where they spot the sheriff in the audience, waiting for girls to finish. During intermission, the boys don the girls’ outfits, and the girls escape to the railroad station. After Chuck and Johnny perform the girl’s number, they’re stopped by the sheriff—who lets them go, because he’s an old Army pal. The boys then join up with the girls on the train, and they all head off to Vermont.

The inn where the sisters are to appear is owned by the boys’ former Army superior, General Waverly. Unfortunately, the inn has few guests, because there’s no snow. So, to drum up a crowd, Chuck and Johnny offer to bring in their Fancy Free company, since they’re “not doing anything,” and put Helen and Judy in the act. 

The whole time, Helen is secretly miserable because she’s falling for Chuck, who she thinks still likes Judy. But Judy has actually been hitting it off with Johnny. Finally, Helen heads to New York to work as a solo act. The General, misreading the situation, tries to console Chuck by telling him Helen left because she liked Johnny.

Chuck is now more worried about the General. He’s now lost a lead singer and there’s still no snow. General Waverly says not to worry, because he has a letter coming that will make everything okay. Soon after, the letter does arrive, but it’s not the news the General was hoping to hear. The Army has declined the General’s request to be reinstated, explaining that he’s “too old.” Chuck intercepts the news, and heads to New York—first to ask Helen to return, and second to ask a favor of another old Army buddy, radio/TV gossip columnist Steve King. On his next broadcast, King shares the plight of the forgotten “old man” and encourages anyone who served under Waverly to support his inn. The show opens on Christmas to a packed house of Army veterans, bringing the General to tears. And as the leads sing “White Christmas,” it begins to snow.

The original plan was to capitalize on the popularity of the song “White Christmas” by reuniting Bing Crosby with Fred Astaire, his co-star in Holiday Inn, in which he introduced the song.

Ultimately, Astaire backed out. The scenario had to be tweaked after his role was given to the younger Donald O’Connor and after Crosby demanded that his character not act too young or frivolously. (Even the characters’ names were changed. The producers suggested Chuck should be the more practical Robert, Bob or James; Johnny should be the more naive Phillip; Helen the less stodgy Betty or Beth; Steve King be the newsier Ed or Walter; and Fancy Free become Heads Up.) 

Kaye’s arrival led to further changes, to better fit Kaye’s more comical image and to give work to Kaye collaborators Norman Panama and Mel Frank.

Although Donald O’Connor had to drop out of White Christmas at the eleventh hour, Paramount teamed him with Crosby two years later as song-and-dance men in Anything Goes.

In the end, White Christmas would retain three of the nine songs Berlin wrote for Stars on My Shoulders: “(We’ll Follow) the Old Man,” “What Can You Do with a General?” and “Monohan & Callahan” (which was rewritten as “A Singer – A Dancer” when Donald O’Connor was cast, and then re-rewritten as “A Crooner – A Comic” when Kaye signed on).

Despite all the permutations, White Christmas has become a beloved holiday classic that most of us could not imagine any other way.

The Sequel to Danny Kaye's "Knock on Wood"... Starring Bob Hope

While Sam Goldwyn always wanted to make a sequel to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, it was Kaye's first film for Paramount, Knock on Wood, that came closer to inspiring a follow-up picture.

Knock on Wood was intended to be Danny Kaye’s first of two movies with Paramount, but the spy comedy was so well received, it led to a series of other pictures, nearly including a sequel.

As shooting for the film was wrapping in late summer 1953, Paramount was desperate to find a co-star for Bing Crosby in White Christmas and, impressed by how well Knock on Wood was coming along, bribed Kaye to handsomely to step in—and even paid Knock on Wood writer/directors Norman Panama and Mel Frank to rewrite the White Christmas script to make it more suitable for Danny’s talents and personality.

When the two movies were released in 1954, White Christmas became the biggest grossing film of the year, taking in $12 million. But it cost nearly $4 million to produce and market, and Paramount had to give away two-thirds of the profits to Crosby, Irving Berlin, and Kaye.

What really impressed the studio was the surprise smash showing of Knock on Wood. It cost $1.2 million and earned $4 million. Paramount quickly negotiated with Kaye for a second two-picture deal, even though it still hadn’t decided what it was going to do as the second picture of the first two-picture deal. Panama and Frank, as it turned out, wanted to do an epic swashbuckling comedy, The Court Jester. Paramount okayed the big-budget epic, but as part of the second deal, they wanted a sequel to Knock on Wood.

After finishing up with The Court Jester in 1956, Panama and Frank started work on a script for a sequel that incorporated Danny’s same ventriloquist character, running into more international spies, but this time in Japan. The title: Knock on Silk.

But as the disappointing returns on The Court Jester trickled in—and Danny devoted huge swaths of his downtime to traveling the globe for UNICEF—Paramount began to question the wisdom of a sequel. Kaye wasn’t happy with the script, so he decided to do two movies for other studios first. When he found their rewrite still too outlandish, he committed to The Five Pennies as his next Paramount picture, figuring he’d conclude his Paramount contract with Knock on Silk.

So Panama and Frank gave it one more stab, removing the Knock on Wood sequel elements and renaming it The Bamboo Kid. It would be shot in Japan, with Danny playing a temperamental movie star who criticizes the script he’s given, saying that it’s too unbelievable—until such adventures really start happening.

Panama and Frank submitted their revised script to Danny in February 1959. He still didn’t like it and tabled the project indefinitely. He ended up selling it to Bob Hope, who had Panama and Frank rewrite it again as The Road to Hong Kong.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 1. And a Snowstorm on the Cutting Room Floor

Okay, it’s time to wrap this series up and go unwrap some presents! So, let’s finish by looking at what was supposed to be the final shot of White Christmas:

Our heroes have rescued the general by inviting his old Army pals to fill up the empty rooms at the inn and, best of all, it’s finally started to snow, promising a steady stream of visitors well into the winter. The camera slowly pulls back and outside to show the exterior of the Vermont lodge and surrounding grounds being absolutely blanketed with flurries of white, as “The End” in distinctive Paramount Script appears in the foreground.

The exterior set was actually to be a finely detailed, handmade miniature. It was the perfect ending… except for the cost.

So producer Robert Emmett Dolan made the call to cut the scene, explaining that the studio “could not, in all honesty, spend $40,000 or $50,000 on a shot that we had no assurance the audience would still be in the theaer to see.”

Instead, we ended up Bing signaling the show crew to open the barn doors behind the stage to reveal a painted backdrop and then yelling, “Merry Christmas!” as if to assure as that there was a veritable blizzard outside.

Now go enjoy your Christmas, and thank you for spending a little bit of your holidays at The Danny Kaye Show.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 2. Two Trademark Tunes

Early drafts of White Christmas began on the theater circuit, at a performance of song-and-dance team Wallace and Davis. It was producer Robert Emmett Dolan who got on the idea to start the movie on the battlefield, with Wallace and Davis as soldiers performing for their fellow troops.

For years, Dolan had been receiving mail from ex-GI’s begging him to recreate the common wartime sight of soldiers listening to the song “White Christmas” overseas, as it stirred up memories of their families back home.

Best of all, adding the new beginning meant Bing Crosby didn’t have to wait until the end of the picture to sing “White Christmas.” He could croon it twice—once at the start, then a reprise with his co-stars at the finish.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 3. Eight from the Trunk

Considering White Christmas: The Motion Picture was based on a song Irving Berlin had written more then a decade earlier for another movie (Holiday Inn), it shouldn’t be surprising that Berlin actually borrowed the majority of his score from earlier projects:

• “Abraham,” like “White Christmas,” was also written in 1941 for Holiday Inn.

• “We’ll Follow the Old Man” and “What Can You Do with a General?” both were written in 1948 for the unproduced show Stars on My Shoulders.

• “Snow” was composed in 1950, with largely different lyrics as “Free,” for the stage musical Call Me Madam, but dropped during tryouts.

• “I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show” and “Mandy” were written in 1919 for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1919—and, in fact, “Mandy” was itself a reworking of “The Sterling Moon,” which Berlin wrote in 1918 for Yip, Yip, Yaphank.

• “Blue Skies” was written in 1926 for the stage musical Betsy (and reused in several movies including, of course, Bing Crosby’s Blue Skies).

• “Heat Wave” was written in 1933 for the stage musical As Thousands Cheer (and also reused in multiple films, including Blue Skies).

Berlin did write “Sisters,” “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army,” “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing,” “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep,” “Choreography,” and “Love, You Didn’t Do Right by Me” expressly for White Christmas.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 5. Five Illustrated Clooneys

A flood wall painting in Maysville, Ky., features five images of Rosemary Clooney, including (lower right) the leads of her most famous picture, White Christmas, and (black-and-white on right) a reproduction of a newspaper photo taken during a parade in her honor, celebrating the premiere of her first movie.  (Photos by Sheryl Hamlin)

You can pay your respects to the cast of White Christmas by visiting Maysville, Ky.—the birthplace of leading lady Rosemary Clooney.

Clooney, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen are pictured in their White Christmas GI costumes in a mural on a massive flood wall along the Ohio River. The artwork actually depicts five different scenes of Clooney, and is one of many beautiful murals adorning the flood walls of Maysville.

After making her singing debut at age 3 at the local Russell Theatre in Maysville, Rosemary Clooney made sure her first movie, The Stars Are Singing (1953), premiered at her hometown cinema. The Russell Theatre is currently under restoration.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 6. One Big Fat Contract

Danny Kaye really had no interest in appearing in White Christmas. He simply did not care for supporting roles. A few years earlier, he’d agreed to co-star with Gene Kelly in a musical Huckleberry Finn for MGM, but—just as filming was about to begin—he backed out. He knew that he’d disappear behind Kelly in any MGM musical.

Consequently, he didn’t think his role would be any better appearing alongside Bing Crosby in a movie built around Crosby’s most famous song. But Kaye also didn’t want to just say no to Paramount. His personal production company had just completed its first picture, Knock on Wood, and Paramount had provided funding, equipment, crews, offices, and distribution—and agreed to do the same for a second film. Indeed, production had gone so well, Kaye’s partners were in the midst of negotiating a second two-picture deal with Paramount.

In addition, Paramount’s liaison to Kaye—Don Hartman—was a close personal friend of Danny's. He oversaw the writing of Kaye's first three movies in Hollywood (Up in Arms, Wonder Man, and The Kid from Brooklyn) and nearly teamed up with Danny to form their own production company in the late 1940s.

In August 1953, when Hartman begged Kaye to take the role, he was desperate, after already losing Fred Astaire and Donald O’Connor. The script, music, costumes, sets, everything was ready and waiting.

So Danny agreed to appear for the ridiculous amount of $200,000 (more than double O’Connor’s price) plus 10% of the profits, convinced that Paramount would pass. Paramount had already promised to split the profits in thirds with Crosby and Berlin, but—out of options—consented to pay the $200,000, if Crosby and Berlin each gave Kaye 5% of their cuts. Both happily agreed, figuring that the picture—and, in turn, they—would make more in the long run with Kaye in the cast.

Ironically, the role Kaye didn’t want turned out to be the most lucrative of his career.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”… Number 7. Six Names a-Changin’

Rosemary Clooney's character and her nightclub both got name changes.

After each screenplay draft of White Christmas was submitted to the studio, producer Robert Emmett Dolan and director Michael Curtiz would sit down with the writer in a story conference to review what they liked, what they didn’t like, what was missing, and what the lead performers were concerned about.

Norman Krasna wrote his first two drafts with Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in mind as the leads. The scripts had basically the same plot as would the eventual finished movie, except for the lead characters, who were venerable show business contemporaries (which Astaire didn’t like) and romantic rivals (which Crosby didn’t like).

Despite their stars' lingering concerns, in analyzing the second draft, the biggest changes Dolan and Curtiz suggested were changing most of the names. Instead of “Chuck Wallace,” they said Crosby should go by the mellower “Robert,” “Bob,” or “James.” (“Bob” stuck.) Instead of “Johnny Davis,” Astaire should be renamed “Phillp.” (It ended up as “Phil.”) Wallace’s love interest, “Helen,” sounded more attractive yet still level-headed as “Betty” or “Beth.” (They went with “Betty.”) “Judy” was fine for her kid sister. New York TV gossip columnist “Steve King” was to be renamed either “Ed” or “Walter” (to conjure up the image of Ed Sullivan or Walter Winchell. They went with the Sullivan-esque “Ed Harrison.”).

Dolan and Curtiz also wanted the two nightclubs renamed. For the Florida club, instead of “Fancy Free,” they suggested “Heads Up” or “Fiddle Sticks.” (It became the benign “Florida Theatre.”) And in New York, in place of the “Kit Kat Club,” they asked for either the “9 O’Clock Club” or “The Carrousel.” (They used the latter.)

All the characters’ personalities, however, remained the same.

The name changes were insufficient. A few weeks later, both Crosby and Astaire walked. Fortunately, one of them was eventually persuaded to return.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 8. Bing Loses His Money Song

Bing's character prefers bucks over babes and originally had a song to express this preference.

The first song Irving Berlin wrote expressly for White Christmas never made it into the picture. Berlin composed the song “Sittin’ in the Sun (Countin’ My Money)” in August 1952 for Bing Crosby to sing in the film’s “Palm Beach” sequence, to illustrate that Bing’s character was perfectly content without romance.

Although the tune would not be included in White Christmas, it was recorded in 1953 by Louis Armstrong (click here to hear) and Frankie Laine (click here).

Once you know what the song was written for, its lyrics make a lot more sense:

Sittin’ in the sun
Countin’ my money
Fanned by my summer breeze
Sweeter than the honey is counting my money
Those greenbacks on the trees
Comes the summer shower drops of rain falling
Sweeter than the Christmas chimes
Hearing those jingles upon the roof shingles
Like pennies, nickels and dimes

Though it’s known that what I own
It’s not a large amount
Fields of gold that I behold
Are in my bank account
Yeah, sittin’ in the sun
Countin’ my money
Happy as I can be
And to top it all when shadows fall
I look to heaven and I see
There's a silver dollar
In the sky shining down on me

Sittin’ in the sun
Countin’ my money
Happy as I can be
And to top it all when the shadows fall
I look to heaven and I see
There’s a silver dollar
In the sky and it’s shining
It goes shining in
Shining down on me

® Irving Berlin

The Twelve Days of "White Christmas"... Number 9. Six Secret Screenwriters

White Christmas may have turned out to be the top-grossing movie of 1954 and to this day a perennial holiday favorite, but after screenwriter Norman Krasna had his first look at a rough cut, he was appalled. 

Yet, while there were five other writers paid to work on the picture, the work was mostly Krasna’s. He spent more than a year on the film, writing four versions of the screenplay, in addition to years before creating an unproduced stage musical that he borrowed the basic plot from. In comparison, writers Jack Rose and Mel Shavelson (The Five Pennies, On the Double) spent a mere one week polishing Krasna’s third script, while Norman Panama and Mel Frank (Knock on Wood, The Court Jester) worked for just three weeks tweaking Krasna’s fourth script for Danny Kaye. 

Gag man Barney Dean was also paid to sit in during filming to make suggestions, as he did on most of the pictures starring his pals Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, but his contributions were usually minimal. 

Director Michael Curtiz and producer Robert Emmett Dolan also made numerous suggestions that were incorporated into the script—but they were all incorporated by Krasna.

Nonetheless, Krasna was so upset, he requested that the producers withhold his screenwriting credit and credit him instead for original story. But when news of Krasna's demands reached composer Irving Berlin, he said that if there were going to be a credit for original story, he wanted part of it, since (a) he worked on that unproduced stage musical with Krasna and (b) the real inspiration for the whole project was his song “White Christmas.”

In the end, Krasna relented, and shared screenwriting credit with Panama and Frank.

The Twelve Days of “White Christmas”... Number 10. Two Geezers a-Grumblin’

Neither Bing Crosby nor Fred Astaire were too crazy about the early drafts of White Christmas. In particular, they were paranoid about how their characters would be portrayed—but for opposite reasons.

Astaire didn’t want his character to come across as too old. He preferred the spry, reckless playboy character that he’d been cultivating in films for the past 25 years, not the script’s grizzled show biz veteran who was old enough to have served in World War I and to have appeared in minstrel shows in vaudeville (even though—then in his mid-50s—that’s exactly what he was).

Crosby, however, didn’t want his character to come across as too young. He’d been pursuing a long-term image of wise, calm, reasonable, sage. The first scripts did have Fred as the playboy and partner Bing as his watchdog. Still, Crosby felt all the skirt chasing made him appear “too frivolous” and “young” in nature.

So, privately, Crosby was relieved when Astaire stepped out and Donald O’Connor was signed. The casting of O’Connor allowed the relationship to change from that of two buddies on the prowl to that of a mature older GI and an adoring younger GI, a dynamic preserved when Danny Kaye joined the cast.

The Twelve Days of "White Christmas"... Number 12. Ten Tunes a-Warblin’

Every day from now through Christmas Eve, I’ll be celebrating the “Twelve Days of White Christmas,” by sharing a little-known aspect of the production of this holiday classic.

Let’s begin by testing your White Christmas intuition. As you may have heard (perhaps from that great new book Danny Kaye: King of Jesters), Danny Kaye wasn’t the first choice to play Bing Crosby’s co-star. Paramount’s original intention was to recreate the magic of the movie that introduced the song “White Christmas,” Holiday Inn (1942), by re-teaming Crosby with Fred Astaire. But Astaire didn’t care for the script and eventually bowed out, so Paramount signed Donald O’Connor. Then O’Connor ended up contracting Q fever from Francis the Talking Mule and, unable to recover quicky, was replaced by Kaye.

With each casting change, the role of Phil Davis had to be significantly revised, from Astaire’s tap-happy playboy, to O’Connor’s fancy-footed greenhorn, to Kaye’s mix between the two, with more comedy but less dancing.

As well, Berlin had to constantly rework his score, depending on the Phil of the day.

Considering their ages and personalities, can you deduce which Phil Davis—Astaire, O’Connor, or Kaye—Berlin had in mind for each of the following songs? Answers below.

• “Blue Skies”

• “Sisters”

• “The Seven-Piece One-Man Band”

• “Choreography”

• “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing”

• “Monahan & Callahan”

• “A Singer—A Dancer”

• “A Crooner—A Comic”

• “Snow”

• “Santa Claus Number”

Answers:

• “Blue Skies” Kaye. Crosby may have made another movie with Astaire named Blue Skies (in which he also sang “White Christmas”), but the song was incorporated into a duet with Kaye at the last minute.

• “Sisters” Astaire. Berlin first envisioned Bing and Fred in drag.

• “The Seven-Piece One-Man Band” Astaire. Fred suggested this number as his virtuoso solo.

• “Choreography” O’Connor. Since Kaye wasn’t a comparable dancer, he stepped aside and let a professional dancer fill in during the most strenuous moves.

• “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing” O’Connor. Kaye did perform this number without a stand-in, to his great pain. But more about that tomorrow.

• “Monahan & Callahan” Astaire. Inclusion of the vaudeville duet—salvaged from an unproduced Broadway show along with the film’s premise and two other songs—made sense when the two leads were both about the same age. It was rewritten as…

• “A Singer—A Dancer” O’Connor. When Kaye, better known as a funnyman than for his footwork was recruited, the song was rewritten again, as…

• “A Crooner—A Comic” Kaye.

• “Snow” O’Connor. Berlin intended to have an elaborate “Winter Fantasy Number” during the train trip to Vermont, but budget constraints turned the dream sequence into a song instead.

• “Santa Claus Number” Kaye. Costumed Danny and Bing were originally supposed to entertain the general with this tune as they passed out presents.