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  • Directed by Michael Curtiz
  • Starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney

Plot[]

After leaving the Army after W.W.II, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis team up to become a top song-and-dance act. Davis plays matchmaker and introduces Wallace to a pair of beautiful sisters (Betty and Judy) who also have a song-and-dance act. When Betty and Judy travel to a Vermont lodge to perform a Christmas show, Wallace and Davis follow, only to find their former commander, General Waverly, is the lodge owner. A series of romantic mix-ups ensue as the performers try to help the General. Written by Norman Cook <cook@ssdgwy.mdc.com>

Errors and Explanations[]

Internet Movie Database[]

Character errors[]

  • While Phil and Bob are lip-syncing the song "Sisters" (allowing Judy and Betty time to escape out the window), there is a phrase at the end that Bob (Bing Crosby) messes up on. "Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister; and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!" Bing Crosby messes up on the last phrase and says "Lord help the mister" instead of "Lord help the sister". It's very obvious that Danny Kaye catches the mistake. This could have been doon for comic effect.

Continuity[]

  • In the hospital, Wallace is almost to the door when Davis calls him back. Wallace sits down on the end of the cot, but in the next shot, he is seated beside Davis on the side of the bed. He shifts over during the conversation.
  • When Davis and Novello are talking about the sheriff, Davis suggests that Novello continue keeping the sheriff busy and then pushes Novello through the door and follows him through the door. However, when the camera follows Davis through the door, Novello is nowhere to be seen. Novello has rushed ahead.
  • A distinctive red bass drum used in the opening wartime scene at Monte Cassino as Captain Wallace performs the film's title song is conspicuously visible again just outside the dressing room of the Haynes Sisters at Novello's back in the USA several years later. Wallace could have brought it back, and presented it to Novello for some reason.

Incorrectly regarded as goofs[]

  • There are several "goofs which aren't" during the "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army" song. Betty and Judy have pants on. When the hometown character set flips up their pant legs are rolled up. Some people consider it a goof that you never see them roll the pant legs up, but Betty and Judy have just been offstage for a few minutes, and come back onstage with their pants rolled up. Bob and Phil are seen to produce hats "out of nowhere" to match their hometown characters - if the hats had been kept anywhere on their persons during the number up to that point, they would have made obvious bulges in their costumes. But again, Betty and Judy just came back onstage, obviously carrying their own hats, and the four characters circle for a few seconds before the cutouts come up. The girls could have passed over the new hats then.
  • When Bob Wallace remembered he had picked up a letter for Gen, Waverly, he says that the letter was from the War Department. The movie was released in 1954 and the War Department had been changed to the Defense Department in 1947. However, Captain Davis never served in the military under the Defense Department (having been mustered out by 1947), and would naturally call it by the name he knew.

Plot holes[]

  • As she is complicit in Phil's effort to keep Gen. Waverly away from the TV, Emma has clearly been informed why Bob is really going on the Ed Harrison Show, correcting her earlier misapprehension that Bob and Phil are going to make him a laughingstock on the air. For some reason, though, she never connects telling Betty about that misapprehension to Betty's sudden departure for New York, and never tells anyone who could make use of the information why Betty left. These conversations could have happened off screen.

Revealing mistakes[]

  • During "The Best Things" dance number, at the end of the number, on the very last twirl around a kneeling Danny Kaye before she falls into his arms, Vera-Ellen trips over Danny Kaye's outstretched left foot. She recovers so smoothly that it is very difficult to catch. This is a couple who have never danced together before!
  • When the General blows out the candles on his cake, the ones on the far side of the cake blow out obviously from another direction, and almost before he blows out the ones nearest him. He wouldn't have had enough air to blow them all out at once from where he stood, due to the size of the cake. Susan could have blown them out from her side.

Movie Mistakes[]

Continuity[]

  • The two sisters are in their room backstage. One sister is holding a coffee pot and pours a cup of coffee, and then puts the coffee pot down. The camera cuts away and cuts back and now she is holding the coffee pot again. She could have picked itn up again to top up the coffee.

Other[]

  • When Bob and Phil sub in for the girls during their "Sisters" number at Novello's in Florida, they have only heard the song performed once and we are supposed to believe that they memorized all of the lyrics? Also, in the same scene, there is an "ooh!" after they sing the line ".the same in the rain or sun." Obviously, the men are lip-syncing to a recording made by the Haynes Sisters, but the sisters' live performance did not contain the "ooh!" so how did Bob and Phil know to do this? The sisters could have told them about the "ooh!" on the recording.

Corrections[]

  • Vera-Ellen was a great dancer and decent actress. She couldn't sing well enough for the movie, though. All of her singing parts are dubbed with another singer's voice. In fact, her part in the song "Sisters" is actually sung by Rosemary Clooney - who sang both parts. Incorrect, a woman by the name of Trudy Stevens was the vocal dub for Vera Ellen.
  • When Wallace and Davis arrive at the night club to check out the Haynes Sisters' act, their only words to Novello, the maitre d', are to the effect of "We're here to catch the Haynes Sisters' act. Tell the girls we're here." However, when Novello goes to their dressing room, he says something like, "Wallace and Davis are out there to catch your act. Your brother Benny is an old Army buddy and wrote them a letter." How did he know? No one told him that. Well, Wallace and Davis are pretty famous, so he probably knew who they were, or they could have written to him and told him they were coming, and that Benny had written them a letter.
  • In the scene where Wallace and Davis are performing the "Sisters" act, they are wearing bright blue sashes and headpieces. When they go back to the dressing room afterwards, the sashes, feathers and head pieces are gray. This is simply not true. In fact, while there are some small shades of gray in the feathers on stage, all items listed clearly remain predominantly blue on stage, in transition to the dressing room and through the dressing room to the window where they escape.
  • Wallace and Davis escape from the sister's show room, out of the window and get a cab. As they are in a rush they don't take anything with them. However, then at the station when catching the train they have all their luggage. How did they have time to get their luggage in such a rush? The guys were at the nightclub where the girls are performing. Their luggage is most likely wherever they were staying. Corrected by ChiChi

Sources[]

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