Goofs

In the first dressing room scene, Judy is pouring coffee for herself and Betty and clearly puts down the coffeepot. When the scene cuts, she is still holding the coffeepot.

In the hospital, Wallace is almost to the door when Davis calls him back. Wallace sits down on the end of the cot, but in the next shot, he is seated beside Davis on the side of the bed.

When the girls come back onstage during the "Back in the Army" song, their pants are at normal ankle length, yet a moment later when the cut-outs are raised in front of them their pants are already rolled up.

The General blows out the candles on his cake after the surprise by Wallace & Davis. At the end of the movie during the song "White Christmas" as they pan back to the General's table all of the candles are lit again.

Each addition of the Variety newspaper announcing the latest news about Wallace and Davis bears the same issue number: Vol. 42, No 196.

Private Davis was wounded in action on Christmas Eve 1944 - this is a recurring plot device. Yet the Purple Heart is nowhere to be seen when he appears wearing medal ribbons.

When the General appears in uniform at the inn his medals bars show his Legion of Merit medal in center position and his Silver Star medal in third position. These ribbons should be reversed. Silver Star takes precedence over the Legion of Merit. The other medal somewhat obscured in the top row is the Distinguished Service Cross. It is correctly placed. .

At beginning of film the troops are being entertained behind the lines; as General Waverly departs and turns back and salutes the troops, not every soldier returns the salute.

When the stage hand brings the train tickets to New York to the guy's dressing room, Phil puts them in his pocket while Bob's back is turned to him. Later on the train when Phil is fumbling around in his pockets pretending to look for them, Bob remarks that he saw Phil put them in his pocket.

When Bob Wallace remembered he had picked up a letter for General Waverly, he says that the letter was from the War Department. The movie was released in 1954 and the War Department had been changed to the Defense Department in 1947. However, Captain Davis never served in the military under the Defense Department (having been mustered out by 1947), and would naturally call it by the name he knew. Furthermore, the seal of the Department of the Army, which would have been on the letterhead, has continued to retain the original "War Department" wording on it since 1947.

There are several "goofs which aren't" during the "Gee, I Wish I Was Back In The Army" song. Betty and Judy have pants on. When the hometown character set flips up their pant legs are rolled up. Some people consider it a goof that you never see them roll the pant legs up, but Betty and Judy have just been offstage for a few minutes, and come back onstage with their pants rolled up. Bob and Phil are seen to produce hats "out of nowhere" to match their hometown characters - if the hats had been kept anywhere on their persons during the number up to that point, they would have made obvious bulges in their costumes. But again, Betty and Judy just came back onstage, obviously carrying their own hats, and the four characters circle for a few seconds before the cutouts come up. The girls could have passed over the new hats then.

Private Davis is not wearing the World War II Victory Medal. As he was supposed to have been on active service during the war, he would have qualified to receive the decoration. The medal was established on 6 July 1945, 2 months after the end of the war in Europe and many service members were separated from duty before the Victory Medal was issued to them.

Davis introduces himself to the general as "Private First Class Davis," but he seems wearing the rank of a private on his sleeve. Until 1968 a single stripe signified Private First Class. In 1968 a "rocker" was added to the PFC stripe (pay grade E-3) and a single stripe alone was designated as Private (pay grade of E-2). So Davis identifying himself as a Private First Class was correct for a World War II soldier.

Betty has the same male dancers at the nightclub as at the resort.

During the dance number between Phil (Danny Kaye) and Judy (Vera-Ellen), at approximately 30:30, when Phil goes down on one knee at the end of the number Judy trips over Phil's left foot.

On the train leaving Miami, the women are in a private compartment, behind a door with an "A" on it. On arriving in Vermont, they are in bunks behind a curtain, next to the "A" compartment. While it's likely they would have changed trains in New York, it would not have been an overnight train from New York to Vermont.

A distinctive red bass drum used in the opening wartime scene at Monte Cassino as Captain Wallace performs White Christmas is conspicuously visible again just outside the dressing room of the Haynes Sisters at Novello's back in the USA several years later.

When the General blows out the candles on his cake, the ones on the far side of the cake blow out obviously from another direction, and almost before he blows out the ones nearest him. He wouldn't have had enough air to blow them all out at once from where he stood, due to the size of the cake.

On the train in the club car, in all the booths (including the one that actors are in!) all the menus are placed on their sides in front of the windows. But when the actors start singing "Snow" the menu on their table is suddenly standing up right.

The Vermont train station has covered walkways, but they are always shown wet.

During the "Snow" number, Phil sings "I'll build a man that's made of snow.", but the womanly figure he outlines is not a male shape or even one of a usual snowman.

In the beginning,"The Pentagon" is mentioned. The movie takes place in 1944 during the Administration of President Frankin Roosevelt. The Pentagon was not built until the Administration of President Harry Truman.

After the Blue Skies number when Phil and Bob are changing in their dressing room, Bob gets his hand caught in his clothes hanger.

At the Inn when Judy is trying to convince Phil they should pretend to be engaged she has him cornered on the couch and we hear him say the words 'I feel the same way about my cocker spaniel.' His mouth says something else.

During the song "Snow" on the train, a close-up of Danny Kaye shows his lips moving but the voice coming out is definitely Bing Crosby's. This happens a couple of times during the song.

When Wallace and Davis are performing the Minstrel Show rehearsal, Wallace (Crosby) can be seen talking/singing before the actual start of the song, but nothing can be heard.

While the quartet is singing "Snow" on the train to Vermont, shadows of the crew and camera can be seen on the table's edge as the camera pulls back.

Towards the end scenery cab seen being moved and a camera.

The Columbia Inn Station Wagon that picks them up at the train station has a black and yellow California license plate when they are suppose to be in Vermont.

When the veterans reunite for the general's surprise, Bob refers to the opening scene when they were in "Montecatino," and the DVD subtitles reproduce this error. The actual WWII location was Monte Cassino, Italy.

The train that transports The Haynes Sisters and Wallace and Davis from Florida to Vermont is shown as being of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in one sequence, and of the Southern Pacific Railroad in another. Neither railway ran on the east coast of the U.S.

The railroad station and passenger cars are said to be in Vermont when in fact they are Southern Pacific Standard Design Station and SP Harriman coaches never used outside of SP service territory.

The movie takes place a few days before Christmas. The shots of the Green Mountains of Vermont in the distance through the window of the inn are actually green. In December in Vermont. no trees are left with green leaves. The tree just outside the window have yellow leaves, as if it is September or October.

Although Betty and Judy had been offered a job at the Carousel Club that Betty eventually accepts, she arrives in New York, presumably signs a contract, is fitted for a gown, rehearses music and choreography for at least two numbers (she asks the bandleader if they could make a last-minute change to a different song), has had publicity shots taken for the club's entrance, and becomes the club's star act all in one day. This is evident because Judy reads Betty's farewell letter in the morning, tells Bob, and Bob meets up with Betty at the club that evening.

When the girls left Florida they left many of their items at the club including the music, costumes and feather fans from their act. Phil told them they would get it to them but he and Bob also leave in a hurry and can be seen leaving the fans behind but when the girls perform the song 'Sisters' for the General in Vermont the same day they arrive, they have the fans, music and costumes.

Early in the movie when Bob and Phil go to The Florida Theater, they tell Novello they are there to see The Haynes Sisters. Novello then goes to the girls' dressing room and tells them that Bob and Phil are there to see their act because the girls' brother had sent them a letter, but Bob and Phil hadn't told Novello that.

Where is the entire cast and crew of a Broadway show plus a couple hundred ex-servicemen and their wives/dates going to stay? The inn can't possibly hold that many.

The enormous chorus of singers and dancers in the musical numbers, not to mention the army of technicians and musicians required to put on the "little show" at the General's inn, are nowhere evident in the story scenes. It would obviously take an immensely larger accommodation than the inn to house them, anyway.

During "The Best Things" dance number, at the end of the number, on the very last twirl around a kneeling Phil before she falls into his arms, Judy trips over Phil's outstretched left foot. She recovers so smoothly that it is very difficult to catch.

During the "Minstrel Show" number, the words go: "Oh, Mister Bones! That's terrible!... Ah, ha!... Yes, Mister Bones, that's terrible!... Oh, ho!" Watch Phil. He flubs the lip-sync and mixes up the "Oh, ho!" and the "Ah, ha!" Apparently, Bob and Betty noticed because, for a few seconds, it looks like they're trying not to laugh. But the pre-recorded soundtrack covers up any giggles that might have been happening.

When Bob and Phil are first discussing Bob's idea of getting their old army outfit up to the inn for their show, Phil asks him, "How are you going to get a whole division up here by Christmas Eve?" A division is 10,000 to 15,000 men.

While Phil and Bob are lip-syncing the song "Sisters" (allowing Judy and Betty time to escape out the window), there is a phrase at the end that Bob messes up on. "Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister; and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!" Bob messes up on the last phrase and says "Lord help the mister" instead of "Lord help the sister." It's very obvious that Phil catches the mistake.

The dancer played in the Mandy number so recognizably by George Chakiris also appears as a featured dancer in Betty Haynes' show at The Carousal Club. The dancer would have had to break his contract with Wallace and Davis, accompanied Betty to New York, and once there be left stranded when she ditched that gig to return to Vermont.