Everybody loves Christmas carols and everyone loves Christmas movies, but did you ever consider how your favorite films use your favorite music? First in a 12-part series.

Mark Sandrich’s Holiday Inn must have been a watershed event for a lot of filmgoers: Imagine sitting in a movie house in 1942 and hearing Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” … for the first time ever. I’m watching that scene right now while writing this – it happens around 26 minutes into the film, as Bing Crosby’s former-entertainer-turned-hardscrabble-innkeeper is teaching the song to Marjorie Reynolds’ wannabe showgirl. It’s not an understatement to call the scene movie magic. (Watch it here.) There’s an encore for the movie’s final scene, of course, because even Berlin (who wrote all the songs for this film) knew he had a hit on his hands.

Nine years later Michael Curtiz (better known for a little job called Casablanca) would helm a quasi-remake of Holiday Inn, with that film – White Christmas – focused more exclusively on yuletide-style entertainment. (The conceit of Holiday Inn involves Crosby performing original showtunes themed to each major holiday of the year.) Of the two movies White Christmas has become more of a default choice for holiday movie lovers seeking their “White Christmas” fix; the latter film is in color, which makes a difference for a lot of people, and it certainly has a more finely distilled take on Christmas cinematic confectionery. It’s a fine film as it goes (and I’ll cover it later in this series). But Danny Kaye, bless his heart, is no Fred Astaire. And for me, well … you can never see something again for the first time.