I have particular movies for particular holidays.  For Halloween, I enjoy Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola.  Thanksgiving is just not Thanksgiving until I see the original ­Miracle on 34^th Street.  I pull out ­A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve, but I prefer the version with George C. Scott playing Scrooge.  My Easter movie is Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade.

The original trailer for the movie called it “the happiest movie ever made.”  I do not know about that, but it makes me happy.  I first saw it as an afternoon movie on television when I was a girl.  From time to time as an adult, I would see it on television, and I would stop what I was doing to watch.  Now in the age of DVDs, I can watch it whenever I like.  And there are times even when it is not Easter that I need a little Easter.

The annual Easter Parade in New York City is the occasion that begins and ends the movie.  We only hear the song at the end. The story that unfolds in between is a circular love story where the right people end up together in the end.  Fred Astaire plays a dancer, Don, who partners with Ann Miller, Nadine.  Her character decides to strike out on her own.  Fred Astaire finds a new partner, Judy Garland, Hannah.  Peter Lawford plays his best friend, Johnny.  Johnny loves Hannah who loves Don who loves Nadine.

Irving Berlin’s songs, however, take us to a place where love is divine, and where there is a special someone, the only one, who is right for us.  The song “It Only Happens When I Dance with You” promises us that when the right people find each other, when they dance cheek to cheek, then heaven is near.  The song sings about “the thrill of Spring when anything can happen.”  It is also the thrill of true love.

The songs take us from a Michigan farm with fields of corn to a train on its way to Alabama.  What they both have in common is that the location is desirable because that is where one’s true love is. In Michigan it is a “certain someone full of charm.” And Alabam is “where my honey lamb am.”  The “Fella with an Umbrella” is waiting for the “girl who saved her love for a rainy day.”  Fred Astaire dances his magnificent solo, “Steppin Out With My Baby” in a cityscape, dancing with three different partners, a saunter, a sultry blues and a jitterbug.  It is a recognition that while love is divine it is also sexual.

I also relate to the song and dance that is Ann Miller’s solo:  “Shakin the Blues Away.” It is clearly influenced by African-American culture.  It invokes a southern revival, a Voo Doo beat and an embodied religious expression that shakes away trouble and hard times.  The story behind the story is that while Ann Miller danced flawlessly throughout the movie, she did it in pain.  She had injured her back, but accepted the role nevertheless.

My postmodern mind always smiles when the waiter does his pantomime of the salad.  The ingredients in the salad come from India, Africa, France, Italy, Bermuda and from a chicken.  The various flavors that each ingredient contributes make the truth of the salad.  Moreover, the movie sings and dances existential authenticity.  Hannah Brown played by Judy Garland is at her best when she is herself and not an imitation of Nadine.  Once Don Hewes recognizes this, the duo becomes a success.  It is a lesson that I never tire of learning.

This is a love story where love loves enough to let the beloved go.  To release a person to be with the one they honestly love is love at its best.  But it is not a sad bloody sacrifice.  It is a wisdom that knows that happiness is only found when love loves truly.

At first glance, this rendition of Easter is purely secular.  This celebration of Spring is not a remembrance of the bloody terror of the slaughter of the firstborn of one people and salvation and escape for another.  It is not a remembrance of the Son of God tortured and dying on a bloody cross and rising from the dead on the third day.   It is a celebration of love.  It is about love of drums and pianos and violins and of human beings loving each other.  It is the joy of music and the insouciance of dances danced with a grace that turns the body into an instrument of happiness.  It is the promise of new beginnings.  And that is a holy promise.

Happy Easter.