windyd wrote:

I wonder why Bing and Doris Day were never in a movie together?  

Even if the idea were ever mooted, I think that there was a major impediment arising from contracts. For much of the time that Bing was with Paramount, Doris was with Warner Brothers.

I have the impression that by the time both were able to act more freely Doris had migrated to dramatic and romantic comedy roles and away from musicals.

On records the situation was similar - for most of her career Doris was under contract to Columbia/CBS.
They both appeared on a Bob Hope radio show in 1948 but did not sing together. 

But would they have made an obvious pairing? My mind wanders over the various films each made and try to imagine Doris in the Grace Kelly, Rosemary Clooney and other roles or Bing in the Gordon MacRae roles! OK, I realise that if it ever happened different vehicles would have been found, but I still have difficulty in imagining it.


 
 

Surely one of the reasons for the success of the film is because the casting was right. But recasting of movies after the event can produce some interesting "what ifs".

If we must cast poor Rosie out what about Judy Garland as a substitute? - a pairing that certainly worked on radio and record. 

An extension of this speculation arises from the current rash of stage productions of "White Christmas" and "High Society"  which seem to be proliferating, together with at least one production of "Holiday Inn".  Of the several reviews that I have seen one common theme emerges - no one does it like Bing - so he should not be recast! 


  

Danny Kaye gave me the pip in the movie with playing on his injury. And I wonder if Donald O'Connor would have been better if he had been available.

Well how about Fred Astaire? He was Bing's first choice, but his wife was dying at the time and Fred thought he was too old to play the role. I think it would have been an even better movie with Astaire. (The worst part of White Christmas was Danny Kaye's "Choreograpy" number.

I think Rosemary Clooney was good in her role. She was a huge star in 1954. Judy Garland was too unpredictable by 54, and even though Clooney was not a great actress I think she was better of one than Dinah Shore.

I say keep Clooney but I would have liked someone other than Danny Kaye (just my personal opinion).

I love Clooney and Kaye in White Christmas.  I think we would think of Rosie as a much better actress if she had been given parts as good as that one in her other movies, which are not very memorable.  And, I would rather see Bing with Danny than I would him with Bob Hope in some of the road movie footage.  I would have liked to have seen Bing and Danny make another movie.  While I loved some of Doris Day's movies as a kid, I have to say that I find much more weight and substance in Rosemary Clooney singing a ballad or jazz standard than I find in Doris playing a movie part at this point in my life.  Still, I'm sure Bing and Doris might have been very entertaining in a song or skit on TV.  I would have liked to have seen/heard Bing do more movies, singing, or dancing, etc. with Donald O'Connor.   How old was O'Connor when they were in Sing, You Sinners together? Bing and Judy Garland together in a movie might have been absolutely amazing.  It would've been a good opportunity for Bing to play a more dramatic role, even if in other scenes it were lighter, and of course, musical.

Last edited by Steve Fay (03/12/2014 5:28 pm)

Steve Fay wrote:

- -  How old was O'Connor when they were in Sing, You Sinners together?  .

He was born in 1925. "Sing, You Sinners" was made in 1938 so he was around 13.