Before last night I’d never watched Holiday Inn (’42), the Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire romantic musical that introduced “White Christmas” and “Happy Holiday.” I found it a wee bit silly and even boring at times, but then the Abe Lincoln minstrel show sequence began.
My jaw fell on the floor. Has to be seen to be believed.
Wiki excerpt: “Beginning in the 1980s, some broadcasts of Holiday Inn 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.
“Turner Classic Movies nonetheless screened the film with the ‘Abraham’ number intact; AMC also aired the film intact before it became an advertiser-supported channel.”
