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50 free White Christmas Movie trivia questions with answers. White Christmas has been a December ritual since 1954, which means most people can hum every Irving Berlin number without knowing much about how the picture got made. These 50 questions cover both sides: the story of Bob Wallace, Phil Davis and the Haynes girls saving a snowless Vermont inn for their old general, and the backstage history of a film that lost Fred Astaire and Donald O'Connor before Danny Kaye stepped in, launched Paramount's VistaVision process, and finished 1954 as the year's top-grossing release. You will also find questions on the songs themselves: the Oscar nomination for 'Count Your Blessings', the Broadway cast-off that became 'Snow', who really sang for Vera-Ellen, and the strange journey of the title song from a 1941 radio broadcast to the best-selling single ever pressed. Difficulty runs from questions any holiday viewer can answer to details only a devoted fan will know. Every answer was checked against a primary reference, mainly the Wikipedia articles on the film, the song and its cast, plus the AFI Catalog, and each question carries its citation. Play it solo, or use it to run a round at your own Christmas Eve show.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which crooner stars as song-and-dance man Bob Wallace?
Bing Crosby
He had already sung the title song on screen twelve years earlier, and this time he also owned 30 percent of the picture.
Q 02Who plays Bob's wisecracking partner, Phil Davis?
Danny Kaye
He was the third choice for the part and joined just before shooting began.
Q 03The snowless inn where most of the story unfolds is in which state?
Vermont
The characters sing about the sleigh rides they expect, then arrive to find bare fields and an empty dining room.
Q 04What is the name of the inn the general runs?
The Columbia Inn
He sank his pension and life savings into it, which is why the empty dining room matters so much.
Q 05The inn sits in which fictional New England town?
Pine Tree
The whole reunited division ends up travelling there for the Christmas Eve show.
Q 06Rosemary Clooney plays which of the Haynes siblings?
Betty
It was her biggest film role; she later admitted she could not dance and had to take lessons during production.
Q 07Who plays the younger Haynes sibling, Judy?
Vera-Ellen
It was her penultimate film; she made only one more, a 1957 British production, before retiring.
Q 08Which veteran character actor plays retired Major General Tom Waverly?
Dean Jagger
He was 50 at the time and had already won an Oscar for playing another military man.
Q 09Who wrote every song in the film?
Irving Berlin
He had first suggested making a movie around his song back in 1948.
Q 10Which studio produced and distributed the film?
Paramount Pictures
The studio put up the entire $2 million budget but took only 30 percent of the proceeds.
Q 11The film was the first ever released in which widescreen process?
VistaVision
The negative ran horizontally through the camera, using twice the surface area of standard 35mm film for a sharper image.
Q 12The title song had first appeared in which 1942 film?
Holiday Inn
That film also gave its name to a hotel chain founded a decade later.
Q 13Which song earned the film its only Academy Award nomination?
Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)
Its lyrics never mention Christmas at all, yet it is played as a holiday standard every December.
Q 21TV host Ed Harrison, whom Bob phones for help, is a stand-in for which real broadcaster?
Ed Sullivan
The character was played by an uncredited Los Angeles radio personality, Johnny Grant.
Q 22Who plays Emma, the eavesdropping housekeeper?
Mary Wickes
She had played almost the same wisecracking housekeeper in two Doris Day films just before this.
Q 23Who directed the film?
Michael Curtiz
He was born in Budapest on Christmas Day 1886, which makes him an oddly fitting choice.
Which future Oscar winner is one of the black-clad dancers backing Clooney's torch song?
Q 14The film's nominated ballad lost the Best Song Oscar to which tune?
Three Coins in the Fountain
Peggy King performed the losing Berlin song on the 1955 telecast anyway.
Q 15Berlin wrote the film's Oscar-nominated ballad after getting advice about his insomnia from whom?
His doctor
He told an executive the song was one of the few times he wrote about something that had literally happened to him.
Q 16'Snow' reuses a melody Berlin cut from Call Me Madam, where it had which one-word title?
Free
The original lyric was a patriotic anthem; a composer's demo survives on the CD Irving Sings Berlin.
Q 17Judy's singing voice was dubbed by which vocalist?
Trudy Stevens
She was the wife of bandleader Dick Stabile and got the job on Clooney's personal recommendation.
Q 18Which number do Bob and Phil lip-sync in a clowning reprise, using the girls' feathered fans?
Sisters
The horseplay was unscripted; the director kept it because it made the crew laugh.
Q 19During the opening air raid, Phil is wounded pulling Bob away from what?
A collapsing wall
Bob feels he owes Phil, which is how a reluctant Broadway star gets talked into a double act.
Q 20Bob and Phil serve in, and later reunite, which army division?
151st
Bob summons its veterans on national television to surprise their old commander.
George Chakiris
Seven years later he won Best Supporting Actor as Bernardo in West Side Story.
Q 25The snapshot of the girls' brother Benny, 'Freckle-faced Haynes', is really which child star?
Carl Switzer
He is Alfalfa from the Our Gang shorts, wearing an army field jacket and jeep cap.
Q 26On top of a $200,000 salary, Kaye negotiated what share of the film's gross?
10%
Crosby, Berlin and the studio split the remaining 90 percent three ways.
Q 27The film's theatrical rentals, the highest of any 1954 release, came to roughly how much?
$12 million
That figure equals about $140 million in 2024 dollars and made it the top-grossing musical to that date.
Q 28'What Can You Do with a General?' was originally written for which unproduced Berlin project?
Stars on My Shoulders
Berlin recycled freely for this score; another number came from a Broadway show and one cut song survives only on a box set.
Q 29The film opens with a soldiers' show in Europe on Christmas Eve of which year?
1944
The general is being reassigned that night, and enemy bombers hit the camp moments after he leaves.
Q 30Wallace and Davis first catch the Haynes act at a nightclub in which state?
Florida
They only go because of a letter supposedly from an army buddy, which Judy actually wrote herself.