For most film historians, the “continental style” of Hollywood comedies in the Interwar period was represented by Ernst Lubitsch and his circle at Paramount Studios, and later by the Jeanette Macdonald-Nelson Eddy operetta kitschfests at MGM. What this received knowledge ignores are the Deanna Durbin musicals at Universal Studios, produced and written by the circleContinue reading “His Butler’s Sister (1943)”
Category Archives: Deanna Durbin
Spring Parade (1940)
Among the neglected gems of Hollywood comedies of the Interwar period, Spring Parade has to be among the most neglected, and the gemmiest. Even though it is one of Deanna Durban’s best films, it is accessible only in a badly deteriorated print (the consequence of a long copyright dispute). As a result, the available versionsContinue reading “Spring Parade (1940)”
Three Smart Girls (1936)
Three Smart Girls was Deanna Durbin’s first movie. It has a good backstory. Its director, Henry Koster, had recently arrived in Hollywood after fleeing Europe. He had begun a career writing and directing in Germany, then in exile in France, and again in Hungary, where he made films in German and Hungarian for the EuropeanContinue reading “Three Smart Girls (1936)”
One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)
One Hundred Men and a Girl was Deanna Durbin’s second film, and like the first, Three Smart Girls, it was conceived and directed by Henry Koster. Its premise is sweet and daring. Durbin plays the daughter of a down-and-out symphony orchestra director, John Cardwell (Adolphe Menjou), whose one-hundred person orchestra is out of work. TheyContinue reading “One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)”