Sanctuary Records Group Ltd. is a British owned record label that specializes in reissues of older albums.  Their catalog of available reissues is enormous.  Castle Pulse has teamed up with Sanctuary Records to put out a terrific Christmas compilation of music somewhat related to the 1954 movie White Christmas.

The movie White Christmas was released in 1954 to showcase the song White Christmas which first appeared in the Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire movie Holiday Inn.  The movie could almost be considered a sequel to Holiday Inn.  A simple plot was arranged to have Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye along with Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen meet as new friends who act together to stage a musical at a Vermont inn that their old Sergeant owns but is failing due to a warm Christmas season and a lack of tourists.

The movie contains wonderful songs performed by wonderful performers.  Not all the songs in the movie can be considered Christmas songs, and most of the songs from the movie appear on the CD.  Not all the songs included are explicitly from the movie.  There are a few of the same songs but performed by another artist.

The cover features a digitally enhanced picture of Vera-Ellen, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby dressed in Santa outfits and dresses.  They are digitally placed over a wooded mountain scene blanketed in snow.  The CD title appears in white letters across the top.  Below the picture are the names Bing Crosby – Rosemary Clooney – Danny Kaye, the principal singers in the movie.  Trudy Stevens provided the vocals for Vera-Ellen in the movie.  Trudy Stevens was a big band torch singer who primarily made her living dubbing vocals for other women in movies.

The back of the CD features a numerical track listing with performing artist credits.  The song titles are presented in Christmas green while the artists names are presented in Christmas red.  It makes for a very festive back cover.

The cover comes out and opens along a single fold.  Both pages are filled with a numerical track listing with performing artist credits.  Below the song titles are performing orchestra credits.  This is always helpful.  I always appreciate that kind of information.  What’s missing are recording dates.  Through investigative research, it was easy to put the proper dates on these recordings.  All songs, except Suzy Snowflake by Rosemary Clooney are from 1953 or 1954.

The back of the CD insert has a great story about the making of the White Christmas movie and the complications for the soundtrack album.  Since Rosemary Clooney recorded for Columbia Records and the other three (including Trudy Stevens), were on Decca Records, Peggy Lee replaced Rosemary Clooney on the official soundtrack album, and Rosemary Clooney made her own Christmas record.  This CD compilation features both of those albums, except maybe a song or two.

All songs were written by Irving Berlin.  Irving Berlin wrote all the songs from the 1942 film Holiday Inn as well.

The best thing about this holiday CD is that all the songs from Rosemary Clooney’s 8 song Christmas album from 1954 are included.  As stated earlier, she released an album of songs from the movie, but they were not the versions that appeared in the movie.

Of her 11 songs on here, 6 are not Christmas songs, but they are wonderful songs.  I am a big Rosemary Clooney fan and I think she was one of the Top 5 female vocalists of the 1950s.

The CD begins with Rosemary Clooney singing White Christmas, with orchestrations provided by Percy Faith.

Suzy Snowflake is a unique Christmas song sung by Rosemary Clooney and issued as a single in 1951, with orchestrations provided by Tony Mottola.

Rosemary Clooney’s voice is perfectly suited for the Christmas classic Winter Wonderland.  Paul Weston & his Orchestra provide charming strings, reeds and bells.

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S is a Christmas song written by Eddy Arnold and Jennie Lou Carson.  Eddy Arnold wrote and recorded it for his Christmas release in 1949.  I have versions of this song by a variety of artists, but no one does a better job with it than Rosemary Clooney, including Eddy Arnold himself.  Perhaps it’s her soft voice accentuated by the Norman Luboff Children’s Choir.  It is one of the best Christmas songs she recorded.

Rosemary Clooney’s last contribution on this CD is the winter song Snow.  It was written for the movie White Christmas and has an ensemble cast recording featured in the movie.  Here, Rosemary performs a solo version with the accompaniment of Percy Faith & his Orchestra.

Three of her 5 Christmas songs presented here are in my Top 500 Classic Christmas Recordings.

This CD contains a lot of great songs, but in actuality, there are only two other Christmas songs here featuring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Peggy Lee (substituting for Rosemary Clooney) and Trudy Stevens (substituting for Vera-Ellen).

The first of these is the ensemble performance of the winter song Snow.  It speaks not of Christmas, but of the participants’ enjoyment of a lot of snow.  The movie takes place in Vermont and during the unusually warm Christmas season, the lack of snow is keeping the tourists away.  Of course, in the finale, the snow begins to fall, eventually blanketing the countryside in a wonderful snowfall.  Orchestrations are provided by Joseph J. Lilley & his Orchestra.

The other Christmas song is the ensemble singing White Christmas.  It is the 22^nd song and closes out the CD.  Orchestrations are again provided by Joseph J. Lilley & his Orchestra.

Keep in mind, there are only 2 Christmas songs not by Rosemary Clooney and all songs but seven were re-recorded for the soundtrack release.  There are great songs on here, and they are performed with great Pop orchestras of the era but they are not Christmas songs.

Most people might pick this up due to the title, the cover and after a quick glance at the song list, but may become disheartened after closer inspection.  This is a great way to get most of Rosemary Clooney’s 1950’s Christmas output.  There are other Rosemary Clooney Christmas compilations that feature the same songs.  In fact, I think I have another one.

Overall, it’s disappointing that there are only 2 original Christmas songs from the movie, and even they are re-recordings, but sound very much like the movie versions.  It’s no one’s fault, that’s what was contained in the movie.  There are other original White Christmas compilations out there, but most would be similar to this.  It’s not like this CD is hiding anything, it’s just that there aren’t any other songs from the movie that could be included.

This is a great Christmas CD; the production is excellent, and it has some of my favorite singers from the 1950s.  If you put this on during the holiday season, you will quickly forget that it is a Christmas CD when every other song is not a Christmas song.  Take this for the Rosemary Clooney selections but look elsewhere for Christmas songs by Peggy Lee and Bing Crosby.

I give this CD :

***