beyond Fred Astaire's firecracker dance to include the patriotic number that highlights the strength of the US military. Music "White Christmas" The song that would become "White Christmas" was conceived by Berlin on the set of the film Top Hat in 1935. He hummed the melody to Astaire and the film's director Mark Sandrich as a song possibility for a future Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle. Astaire loved the tune, but Sandrich passed on it. Berlin's assignment for Paramount was to write a song about each of the major holidays of the year. He found that writing a song about Christmas was the most challenging, due to his Jewish upbringing. When Crosby first heard Berlin play "White Christmas" in 1941 at the first rehearsals, he did not immediately recognize its full potential. Crosby simply said: "I don't think we have any problems with that one, Irving." Although "White Christmas" has become iconic, this was not the original intention. The song "Be Careful, It's My Heart", played during the Valentine's Day section of the film, was originally intended to be a bigger hit when production of Holiday Inn commenced. The song is used during the Christmas holiday sections of the movie, most notably when it is introduced to Linda Mason (Reynolds) by Jim Hardy (Crosby) while she is trying to obtain a position in the shows at the inn. Hardy begins playing the song to her allowing her to join him and eventually perform solo. The song is also reprised near the end of the movie. Chrysotile asbestos was used to make the fake snow used in this scene. Song releases Full-length studio recordings of the film's songs, differing slightly from those in the movie, were made for commercial release. Initially issued on 78rpm records, they were later collected on LP, cassette and CD. Soundtrack Soundtrack from Holiday Inn is a soundtrack album of Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire singing Irving Berlin songs that were taken directly from Holiday Inn. This soundtrack was first released on vinyl LP. These songs differ slightly and are often faster to save time than the ones released to the public on 78 rpm phonograph records. It was not until 1979, 37 years after the making of the film, that a full soundtrack was released on Sunbeam Records (STK-112) of the songs in the movie. In 2004, the Soundtrack Factory label released a soundtrack of the original recordings