Holiday Inn is a 1942 American musical film starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with Marjorie Reynolds, Virginia Dale, and Walter Abel.

[4] Jim Hardy, Ted Hanover, and Lila Dixon have a popular New York City song and dance act.

In a flower shop, Danny is pitched by sales girl and aspiring performer Linda Mason; he steers her to Holiday Inn and Ted's club.

On Christmas Day, Linda arrives at Holiday Inn and meets Jim, the pair immediately realizing their deception.

On Washington's Birthday, Ted and Linda dance in elaborate 18th-century period costumes, with Jim sabotaging their tempo from a minuet to jazz throughout.

In May 1940, Irving Berlin signed an exclusive contract with Paramount Pictures to write songs for a musical film based on his idea of an inn that opened only on public holidays.

Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire were the stars of Holiday Inn with support from Marjorie Reynolds and Virginia Dale.

Produced and directed by Mark Sandrich, Holiday Inn had its premiere at the New York City Paramount Theatre August 4, 1942.

[citation needed] Filming outside the studio occurred at the Village Inn Resort in Monte Rio on the Russian River, in Sonoma County, California.

For November, an animated turkey is shown running back and forth between the third and fourth Thursdays, finally shrugging its shoulders in confusion.

As a result, the Fourth of July segment was expanded beyond Fred Astaire's firecracker dance to include the patriotic number that highlights the strength of the US military.

He hummed the melody to Astaire and the film's director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle.

The song "Be Careful, It's My Heart", played during the Valentine's Day section of the film, was originally intended to be a bigger hit when production of Holiday Inn commenced.

The song is used during the Christmas holiday sections of the movie, most notably when it is introduced to Linda Mason (Reynolds) by Jim Hardy (Crosby) while she is trying to obtain a position in the shows at the inn.

In 2006, it was released as a single-disc "Special Edition" featuring a commentary by Ken Barnes, with interspersed archival comments by Crosby and Astaire.

It also included A Couple of Song and Dance Men, a documentary on Astaire and Crosby; All-Singing All-Dancing, a featurette on audio recording of movie musicals; and a reissue theatrical trailer.

In 2014, it was released on Blu-ray as a single disc edition featuring both black and white and colorized versions and all previous DVD extras.

Theodore Strauss of The New York Times described it as "all very easy and graceful; it never tries too hard to dazzle; even in the rousing and topical Fourth of July number, it never commits a breach of taste by violently waving the flag.

The website's consensus reads: "With the combined might of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, and Irving Berlin working in its favor, Holiday Inn is a seasonal classic—not least because it introduced 'White Christmas' to the world.

[20] Beginning in the 1980s, some broadcasts of the film have entirely omitted the "Abraham" musical number, staged at the Inn for Lincoln's Birthday, because of its depiction of a blackface minstrel show incorporating racist images and behaviors.

[21] However, because Turner Classic Movies airs films uncut and unedited, the network has left the "Abraham" number intact during their screenings of Holiday Inn.

[citation needed] In 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May named Holiday Inn as her favorite Christmas film, causing controversy due to the blackface performance in the "Abraham" segment.

[22][23] Holiday Inn was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the January 11, 1943, CBS broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Crosby and Astaire with Dinah Shore.

With book by Gordon Greenberg and Chad Hodge, music from the films Holiday Inn and White Christmas (since Paramount Global through Paramount Pictures now remains and currently owns the rights for the 1954 adaptation of White Christmas) plus other Berlin songs, and directed by Greenberg, the musical premiered at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut on September 19, 2014.

[26] The Roundabout Theatre Company production of Holiday Inn began previews on Broadway at Studio 54 on September 1, 2016, before the official opening on October 6.

The cast included Bryce Pinkham as Jim, Megan Lawrence as Louise, Corbin Bleu as Ted, and Lee Wilkof as Danny.