 | A Perfect Introduction- You'll Love Her!
rating: 5
Deanna Durbin was a big star for Paramount in the 1940s. She began as a child star; her first ever film was Every Sunday with Judy Garland. Durbin quickly became a star with her first film Three Smart Girls. From there, she made plenty of movies, most of them lighthearted with plenty of chances to show off her voice. Then, she left the business altogether and retired to France where she still lives today. An excellent actress and a real-charmer, Durbin still has quite a following today, although the general public has never heard of her. Here is your chance to discover the vibrance of a beautiful star with movies appropriate for any age.
In Three Smart Girls, three young girls hear the news that their father (Charles Winninger) is going to be re-married, and it is a shame too because their mother (Nella Walker) still loves him. The three girls, Joan (Nan Grey), Kay (Barbara Read), and Penny (Durbin) make a plan to break up their father's engagement and set him back up with their mother. They enlist the help of Michael Stuart (Ray Milland), Bill Evans (John King), and Count Arisztid (Mischa Auer) which heeds some mixed up results. This is the first feature film with Durbin, and it is no wonder she soon became a big star. The movie showcases her singing talents with several different numbers ranging from operatic to popular. Her sweet smile and knack for carrying out schemes are exhibited at full force. She is flanked by two beautiful but less charming actresses whose careers never really took off. Winninger is especially good in his part as the father; He is really lovable.
Durbin stars in First Love, her own version of Cinderella. She plays a sweet, innocent, and friendly orphan named Connie who goes to live with her spoiled socialite cousin Barbara (Helen Parrish) when she graduates from an all girl's school. She wins over the staff with her well-trained singing voice and energy who encourage her to break her cousin's rigid rules and have a little fun. However, Barbara constantly tries to guilt Connie into doing things for her, such as feigning sick to stall her friends so she can sleep in. On this escapade, Connie runs into the guy everyone seems to love (Robert Stack) who becomes fascinated with the mysterious Connie. Later, they meet again when the staff helps Connie go to a party despite Barbara's efforts to detain her. There, Connie is a sensation, singing and dancing all night with a love-struck Ted. However, after being advised to leave by midnight to avoid running into Barbara and her mother, she leaves in a hurry leaving an enchanted Ted with only a shoe to remember her by. It is strange how much Durbin and Parrish look alike, which really compliments the film. However, the two couldn't be more different. They make the trite but true story of Cinderella come to life in a way different enough not to bore. The music in this film is very much like an operetta, and one cannot deny Durbin's talent in this type of singing. This film was presented as a stepping stone to allow her to grow up on the screen, which happened very slowly.
It Started With Eve is the best film on this disk. When a man (Robert Cummings) visits his dying father (Charles Laughton), he is requested to bring his fiancée for his father to meet for the first time before he passes away. The man is beside himself because he cannot find Gloria, his fiancée, who went out shopping with her mother. Instead, he pays a girl (Durbin) who works at the hotel to pose as his fiancée for the night, since his father will never know the difference. She takes the job so that she can go visit her family in Ohio with the money. However, the girl's wholesome looks and vibrant personality charm the old man and he makes a full recovery, leaving the man with an interesting situation. This film is very funny throughout. The charade is the most obviously humorous part, but other minor parts evoke laughter as well. The newspapermen are funny, Laughton's desire for a cigar is funny, and Durbin's tenacity when it comes to music is funny. She is outstanding. She is realistic and mature, making her character quite believable despite the hair-brained situation. It makes it easy to understand why the old man would like her so much. She is sweet and sincere, a "good girl," but by no means an annoying one. She is also playful and likeably heartbreaking at times. Laughton is almost unrecognizable at times in his old man makeup. He plays the amusing sick man to the hilt in a way reminiscent of Lionel Barrymore. He is subtlety cute and funny at the same time, and obviously very sensitive but honest underneath the playful exterior. Cummings has good chemistry with Durbin and is effective in his emotional scenes. However, he takes a backseat to the other stars. The music in Durbin's films is almost as important as the story. She sings three in this film. The first is "When I Sing" which sounds startlingly familiar to the "Once Upon a Dream" song from Sleeping Beauty. The process of preparing for the song is quite funny. The second song is a jumpy Spanish number. It shows off Durbin's many talents including that of vocal, piano, and energetic presence. The last song is "Goin' Home," a dreamy weepy song that has too obviously been dubbed.
Can't Help Singing is the only color Durbin film so it is a curiosity in and of itself. The story is very much like the classic It Happened One Night only it is set during the California gold rush. It concerns a wealthy girl whose family disapproves of her engagement to a soldier. She runs away from home to meet up with him but on the way meets another poorer man who sweeps her off her feet. This version is not done as slickly as the 1934 original, but it is highly entertaining. There are plenty of elements in this film that make it seem like a stage production. The large choral numbers are grand and static and the humor is similar to the screwball comedy style incorperated in early musicals. In fact, the humor helps to pull the dull parts out of the mud to regain the fluidity. Durbin is very beautiful in color although she wears a lot of makeup and her hair is very blonde. She is slightly more mature than in her earlier comedy films but she fits the part well and carries the show.
Lady on a Train revolves around a girl (Durbin) who happens to witness what looks like a murder outside of her train window. However, the girl was reading a murder mystery novel on the train, and one suspects that her accusations may be the result of an active imagination. The police suspect the same thing, which forces her to go to the only other source of help she knows, the author of the murder mystery novel. This film is much more comical than thrilling fueled by the girl's eccentricity, but it is no less entertaining. Durbin is stunningly beautiful in this film. Her blonde hair shines in the soft lighting and she is obviously more grown up than in most of her films. She is still impulsive and charming, but her hair-brained schemes are executed with a subtle maturity. For once, Durbin looks like a gorgeous glamour girl of the era instead of a child star. The songs in this film are unusual for a Durbin film. Most of her songs in other films are quite juvenile like Judy Garland's, but those in this film are ones you might expect any adult to sing in a film. "Silent Night" is a song that is sung over a telephone. It is filed in soft lighting with Durbin's hair cascading over the bed like the glamorous Rita Hayworth. Although it is beautifully sung, the transition from dialogue to song is not very smooth. The next song is by far the best even though the title would suggest it is silly. "Gimmie A Little Kiss, Will You Huh?" is sung with the suggestiveness of a Marilyn Monroe song. The song is languid and underplayed. Needless to say, it is quite unlike anything one might expect from Durbin, but she does it so well, one wonders why these types of songs did not continue. The last song is "Night and Day," a standard of the era. It employs some of Durbin's operatic training and is not as outstanding as the previous song, but it is a nice change of pace for the star.
Last is Something in the Wind, a fun movie and a great example of a typical Durbin film. It has music, a great cast, and a fun but unimportant storyline that shows Durbin's knack for comedy. It starts with radio personality Mary Collins (Durbin) whose life is changed when a wealthy man accuses her of being his newly deceased grandfather's mistress. She learns that they have mistaken her for her aunt who had a romance with the old man when she was young. To get back at the ill-intending family, Durbin plays along and plans to teach them a lesson. In the process, she gets involved in a love triangle that includes the two young men of the house, Donald (John Dall) and Charlie (Donald O'Connor). Durbin and O'Connor entertain through song with several great numbers. Durbin's range goes from pop music ("The Turntable Song") to opera ("Il Miserere"). O'Connor is great in his animated "I Love a Mystery."
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Durbin at 41 in Gypsy instead of Merman or Russell? I think she would have been terrific
rating: 4
Like many others, my view of Deanna Durbin was of a long-ago young star with a big voice, something like an early version of one of Lawrence Welk's interchangeable Barbi doll singers. After watching the six movies in the Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack - a title, incidentally, that does her reputation no good service, -- I've radically revised my estimation of her.
In fact, if she'd ever been wooed out of retirement in the Sixties to play the determined, funny, poignant and sad force of nature named Momma Rose in Gypsy, I think Durbin could easily have wrestled Merman to a draw and would have thoroughly erased any thought of Rosalind Russell. She's that good.
Durbin as Little Miss Fix-t? Durbin as the charming child next door? Durbin as the good-looking tomboy willing to step into a mud puddle? Durbin as the lovely young woman who can trill an aria? Yes to all of these, starting when she was 15 in her first movie and finishing when she was 27 in her last. Audiences loved her voice, her natural manner and her flair for comedy. But spend some time with her in these six movies and your estimation of her unique talent might undergo a transformation. While she was constrained by the formulas that sold tens of thousands of tickets for her movies, she still was the only young Hollywood star in the Thirties who was able to move into adulthood with her popularity, her star clout and her poise in tact. She had an unusually warm soprano and the technique and skill, even at 15, to sing just about anything. In these six movies she handles everything from Puccini's Un Bel Di to the down and dirty "Don'cha Daddy?' In between she vamps a Cole Porter song as easily as she skips through a Viennese waltz. What is surprising is that if all these songs were cut from these movies, all of the movies except Can't Help Singing would hold up as smart screwball comedies or effective light romances. Since these are her movies alone, the reason is her talent and personality (and some good directors, of course). Where these movies seem weak now, is with her leading men. Universal evidently didn't see the need to invest in effective male leads to play off her. Without exception, her love interests are handsome, interchangeable young men, all of them much more at home in B movies.
Deanna Durbin was a remarkably talented and poised woman who, given a chance, I think could play fast-paced screw-ball comedy just about as well as Carol Lombard. Heresy perhaps, but watch her in some of these movies. And if you watch carefully, you'll also see that glint of determination, that willingness to take on all comers, that in middle age would have made her a great Momma Rose.
Instead, of course, a year and a half after her last movie she married, packed her bags and went to live in France, just outside Paris. It was 1950. Her husband of 49 years has died, but she still lives on. From the minute she left Hollywood she never gave another interview, turned down all deals to make more movies and only once even permitted a photograph of herself to be released. She didn't become a recluse. She just wanted to reclaim her life.
The six movies take us from 1935 to 1947. All provide solid entertainment. First Love, a retelling of the Cinderella story and cursed with a quease-inducing title, is extremely good. Three Smart Girls, her first movie, is excellent comedy. It Started With Eve has her up against that skilled and funny ham, Charles Laughton. She handles him with ease. All six, fitted on two DVD discs, look very good.
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Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack
rating: 5
This was an excellent buy. It Has various titles, comedies , mysteries and who could not like the voice .
well done Deanna
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Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Pack (Three Smart Girls / Something In the Wind / First Love / It Started with Eve / Can't Help Singing
rating: 3
It's a trade off because the pack combines 3 of her most notable and popular films with three of her films that were not!
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Deanna Durbin - Can't Help Singing
rating: 5
What a shame that younger generations don't know who Deanna Durbin is! She was a fine actress and legitimate high soprano (especially beautiful appearance until she started gaining some weight) who should be better known as one of the very best of all time. I hope Canada has done something important in her momeory. Any serious students of singing and the classics (both light and heavy) should have these DVDs which preserve her legacy.
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