'Irving Berlin's White Christmas' brings back sweet memories

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The Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye film "White Christmas" was adapted for the stage in 2004 as "Irving Berlin's White Christmas." It opens Tuesday at the Orpheum.

For those who are seriously devoted to the holidays, any discussion about the best decade for American Christmas music — the 1940s or the 1950s — might best be settled with snowballs.

The 1940s gave us "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and "The Little Drummer Boy."

The '50s gave us "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "Santa Baby," and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."

The biggest Christmas song of all time, however (which also happens to be the biggest hit single of all time, according to the "Guinness Book of World Records"), has its dreamy hook in both decades, thanks to Bing Crosby and a couple of movies scored by the great Irving Berlin.

The song "White Christmas" first appeared in the 1942 film "Holiday Inn," starring Crosby and Fred Astaire. The nostalgic melody spent 11 weeks on the charts after its initial release and won the Academy Award for best song. A side note: The film, about a retired singer who opens a vacation hotel on a farm in Connecticut, also gave Kemmons Wilson the name of his first hotel in Memphis, which would grow into his international chain of Holiday Inns.

Just over a decade later, Crosby teamed up with Danny Kaye for the film "White Christmas." In it, a couple of old Army buddies reunite to help their former commanding officer save his struggling inn in Vermont from bankruptcy by putting on a show to raise money. Berlin's tune was the centerpiece of the highest-grossing film of 1954.

In 2004, the film was adapted into a stage production called "Irving Berlin's White Christmas," which opens Tuesday at the Orpheum. The production has toured perennially since its San Francisco premiere in 2004.

Actress Ruth Williamson, who plays the housekeeper Martha, has been with the show for years, and performed the role on Broadway in 2009.

"I call it my annuity," she said. "I love being in this show. It's a really fun way to spend the holidays."

Though the show has been passed along to several different producers over the years, it has remained essentially the same.

"There are a lot of things that aren't in the movie," Williamson said. "There's more music and a lot more dancing."

The Berlin hit "Blue Skies," for example, which is only briefly referenced in the film version, becomes a big production number in the musical.

"The movie is so iconic," Williamson said. "And we wanted to really evoke that sweetness and innocence of 1954."

'Irving Berlin's White Christmas'

7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 and 8 p.m. Nov. 25 and 26 and 1:30 and 7 p.m. Nov. 27 at the Orpheum, 203 S. Main. Tickets are $15-$95. Call (901) 525-3000.

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