["Holiday Inn"]

No intention to be condescending? But for a few exceptions in the early days of sound (such as "Arrowsmith") that featured black professionals or the occasional later film like "Since You Went Away" that displayed a black soldier in the background, you'd be hard-pressed to find a black character in a '30's or early '40's film whose role wasn't to fix the white folks' dinner or turn down their beds. As Myrna Loy once asked, why did we never, ever see a black person carrying a briefcase up the courthouse steps, when such a thing happened every day in real life? Because the whole Hollywood system -- however charming and brilliant it could be -- was condescending to its bones, that's why.

 

And while minstrel shows or Al Jolson singing "Mammy" with shoe polish on his face couldn't easily be called evil -- if only because their intention was solely to please -- their popularity was nothing to brag about, either. There are shades of gray in life, and that sort of entertainment was and is definitely in the shadows.

 

As for "pure 'theatre'," Lord knows what that means.

["Holiday Inn"]

I can understand TCM's impulse to show "Holiday Inn" on Christmas Eve. I just want to go on record as saying that the blackface number ("Abraham") is appalling. And please, no one tell me that "I have to see this number in the context of its own time." It was nauseatingly condescending in 1942, and it still is.