The Connecticut inn set for this film was reused by Paramount 12 years later as a Vermont inn for the musical White Christmas (1954), also starring Bing Crosby, and again with songs composed by Irving Berlin.

When Irving Berlin won an Oscar for his song "White Christmas" from this movie, he became the first artist to present himself with an Academy Award.

The firecracker dance sequence was added to the movie as a patriotic number, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, which took place during filming. The montage preceding the firecracker dance includes shots of war-time production, military exercises, General MacArthur, and President Roosevelt. The dance number required three days of rehearsal and took two days to film. Fred Astaire did 38 takes of the number before he was satisfied with it. The crew members had to wear goggles during filming, because the sand from the firecrackers flew into their faces. Also, animation was added to make the firecracker "blasts" more dramatic. Later, Astaire's shoes for the dance were auctioned off for $116,000 worth of war bonds.

For the "drunk" dance, Fred Astaire had two drinks of bourbon before the first take and one before each succeeding take. The seventh and last take was used in the film.

The animated Thanksgiving sequence, in which a turkey jumps back and forth on the calendar between the third and fourth Thursday in November, is a topical reference to the "Franksgiving" controversy. Thanksgiving was always on the last Thursday in November, and in 1939 the last Thursday was November 30, the fifth Thursday that month. So in 1939 and 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt' attempted to change Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November, instead of the last, in an effort to bolster holiday retail sales by starting the Christmas season earlier. This led to a joint resolution in Congress, which Roosevelt signed into law in 1941, officially designating the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day. Holiday Inn was released in 1942, the first Thanksgiving when this change was in effect.

Continuity

The telegram that Ted Hanover receives from Jim Hardy on Christmas Eve is dated December 25th.

The calendars shown for the last part of the film are from 1942, except for November, which is from 1941. The progression of calendars goes December 1940, February 1942, April 1942, July 1942, November 1941, and December 1942. This November calendar portrays the second-to-last vs. fourth Thursday Thanksgiving day confusion, started in 1939 by presidential proclamation, and cleared up by congressional legislation in 1941 for the 1942 calendar.

When Lila gives Linda a lift to Holiday Inn, Linda gets in the car, sits down, and starts to close the door. In the next shot, Linda hops into the car again.

Fred Astaire throws a box of candy over the back of a park bench. It lands by a planter but later disappears only to reappear again.

At one point early in the opening song & dance on stage, Crosby grabs Astaire's jacket from behind -- Astaire stops mid-motion holding his right leg up in the air. The next instant cuts to a different camera view, and Astaire is holding his left leg up in the air.



Revealing mistakes

The April calendar preceding Easter Parade clearly has a 31 after the 30th, though April does not have 31 days. A bunny's head hides the digit "1", but the "3" of the "31" is clearly visible.

Whilst Jim and Linda are first singing "White Christmas", at the end of the song the fire behind them appears to explode. The intent was to turn down the fire along with the end of the number, to enhance the fade-out. But because the crew member charged with turning the gas valve to the fire was behind the set, he turned the valve the wrong way at first, and when alerted to the mistake, he turned the valve off as originally planned.

During the "Easter Parade" number it is clear that the backgrounds are painted and placed behind a few "real" trees and bushes. This is especially noticeable in Hi-Def.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

When Jim first plays "White Christmas" with Linda at the inn, he sits down to play a piano. However, there is no piano present on the audio track.

When Jim Hardy plays the bells on the Christmas tree at Holiday Inn, he hits the two bells twice, but in both cases, gets different tones the second time. This happens again, almost identically, when Linda Mason plays the bells on the movie set.

When Linda Mason first arrives at Holiday Inn, the scene opens with Jim nailing the Holiday Inn sign to the roof. The soundtrack is off and the sound of the hammer hitting the nail is heard on the backswing, instead of when the hammer hits the nail. The rest of the soundtrack, however, is correctly synced.