Three Smart Girls

Deanna Durbin, Nan Grey and Barbara Read are "Three Smart Girls" in this Universal film from 1936, which introduces Deanna Durbin to film audiences. It also stars Ray Milland, Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, John King, Binnie Barnes and Alice Brady. It's a sweet story about three young women, now living in Switzerland with their divorced mother, who hear their father (Winninger) is marrying again. Not having seen him in 10 years and knowing their mother still loves him, they board a ship to America, with the help of the housekeeper/nanny, determined to stop the wedding. Realizing that the intended, called "Precious" (Barnes) is nothing but a gold-digger aided and abetted by her mother (Brady), they arrange for her to be introduced to a wealthy Count. This is arranged by their father's accountant (King). The man he chooses is a full-time drunk (Auer), but the girls mistake him for an actual wealthy count (Milland). What a mess.

This is a delightful film, not cloying or overly sugary at all, with some nice performances, particularly by Auer, Milland, Barnes and Brady. The young women are pretty and all do good work. The emphasis, of course, is on young Durbin, who is a natural actress and a beautifully-trained singer. In fact, her voice as a youngster is much more even than it would be as an adult - she has no trouble with the high notes, as she did later on because she put too much weight in the middle voice. She sings a delightful "Il Bacio" in a police station.

One of the nicest things about the film is to see the father, played by Charles Winninger, not want his children around - until he sees them and gets to know them. Barnes as the gold-digger isn't all that young, but the girls' mother looks way up there, so the inference probably was the older man seeking his youth with a younger, more glamorous woman. In fact, he finds the youth he was seeking in his daughters.

Universal gives Durbin the big star buildup here - she has the final shot in the movie. Ray Milland at this point was still paying his dues, and it will probably be a surprise even to film fans how young and attractive he is.

Very entertaining and of course, this led to a sequel and big stardom for Deanna.

About 20 years ago, I managed to watch the beginning of this movie on AMC-when it was still commercial-free and didn't edit its films for content-but turned it off or changed the channel after Deanna Durbin's first number. So now I've seen the whole thing on Netflix DVD and I can honesty say I enjoyed most of it. Initially, I thought the dialogue was being presented too fast for me to understand everything going on but I caught on eventually and warmed to Ms. Durbin's presence as the young impulsive teen. The women who play her sisters are also pretty appealing and there's a nice comic performance by Charles Winninger as their father. Mischa Auer is also funny as a drunken bum who's supposed to pose as a count. While I don't consider myself an opera fan, Ms. Durbin is pretty entertaining when she sings. In summary, Three Smart Girls is a pretty funny movie that's worth a look.

THREE SMART GIRLS (Universal, 1936), directed by Henry Koster, gives indication as a movie set in a classroom revolving around three intellectual students competing in keeping their names on the honor roll or dean's list. Though it does present three school age teenagers as major attractions, it's basically an uplifting story serving as a promotion for three bright stars in the making: Barbara Read, Nan Grey and "Universal's Newest Discovery," Deanna Durbin. Aside from her special billing in the opening credits, Durbin acquires enough attention and close-ups to come as no surprise which one of the "three smart girls" is to become an overnight sensation.

The story introduces three teenage sisters, Kay (Barbara Read), Joan (Nan Grey) and Penny (Deanna Durbin) living together in the country home in Switzerland with their mother, Dorothy (Nella Walker) and housekeeper, Martha (Lucile Watson). Through a newspaper article, the girls find, to their displeasure, that their New York millionaire banker father, Judson Craig (Charles Winninger), whom their mother divorced ten years ago, intends to marry, Donna Lyons Binnie Barnes), a young socialite he affectionately calls "Precious." Donna, along with her mother (Alice Brady), it turns out, are actually fortune hunters after Craig's money. Because this news has hurt their mother, who still loves him, Penny suggests paying Daddy a visit to break up this union. With "Mummy" remaining in Switzerland, the girls, accompanied by Martha, take the next boat to New York, after which they surprise both Daddy and his future bride-to-be while dining in an exclusive restaurant. A series of schemes and mishaps follow, including the hiring of Count Arisztid (hilariously played by Mischa Auer), a drunken unemployed Hungarian gigolo, to woo Miss Lyons. Along the way, the elder sisters encounter young men of interest, Bill Evans (John King), who manages Craig's investments; and Lord Michael Stewart(Ray Milland).

Reportedly a huge success for Universal, earning an Academy Award nomination as Best Picture of 1936, it shows how important it was for both studio and 14-year-old Deanna Durbin. Being her feature film debut, with only the musical short, "Every Sunday" (MGM, 1936) opposite Judy Garland, to her credit, Durbin turned out to be one smart girl for this production. Energetic, vibrant and talented in the singing category, she opens the film singing "My Heart is Singing" while rowing the sailboat with her sisters. "Someone to Care for Me" (by Gus Kahn, Walter Jurman and Bronislau Kaper) started off earlier with Binnie Barnes attempt to sing while entertaining her guests, in turn serving Durbin to advantage singing it to her father (Winninger). Durbin's final number is the classical piece, "Il Bacio" where she sings in a police station for the police chief (John Hamilton).

With other capable performers in the cast, Ernest Cossart co-stars as Craig's manservant, Binns; Charles Coleman (Stevens, the butler); Franklin Pangborn (The Jeweler); and Hobart Cavanaugh (Wilbur Lamb, one of Craig's assistants).

One of the most revived Durbin films to air on commercial television during the 1960s, THREE SMART GIRLS turned up quite frequently on cable channel American Movie Classics (1993-1996) before shifting over to Turner Classic Movies where it premiered January 14, 2007. Prior to that, THREE SMART GIRLS did get further exposure when distributed to home video in the 1990s. Interestingly, when displayed to DVD a decade later, it became a companion piece with a much latter Durbin musical, SOMETHING IN THE WIND (1947) instead of its sequels, THREE SMART GIRLS GROW UP (1939) and HERS TO HOLD (1943). As popular as the original turned out to be, with its blend of music, comedy and sentiment, the sequels were equally successful, though virtually forgotten due to limited television revivals or hard to find VHS copies.

THREE SMART GIRLS not only opened a whole new career for Deanna Durbin, but marked the beginning of a whole new cycle of teenage movies later carried on by Judy Garland and others over where Durbin actually got her start, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (***)

This charming, funny movie combines Deanna Durbin's numerous talents with a far-fetched but enjoyable story, a set of interesting characters, and a cast and settings that make it all work. It combines the feel of the old screwball comedies with a little of the pace of a vintage musical, and a dash of commentary on family life. The combination works well, and is not as easy as it looks, as is so often demonstrated by the numerous gauche, hammy "family comedies" of more recent years.

Although she was quite young at the time, Durbin already had quite a singing voice, and she also had the kind of stage presence that allows her young character to take command of a scene in ways that would otherwise seem forced. She and the other two of the "Three Smart Girls" make a winning and energetic set of heroines. The rest of the cast members do well, too, and several of them have some very good moments. Charles Winninger makes the indecisive father very believable, Ray Milland's smooth, slightly exaggerated performance fits in nicely, Mischa Auer steals a number of scenes, and Binnie Barnes keeps her "other woman" character from being a stereotype.

Despite having a short career, Deanna Durbin left behind several very pleasant, enjoyable pictures that are worth the trouble to find for fans of classic cinema. This early feature is particularly charming.

MGM's loss was Universal Studio's gain when Louis B. Mayer sold Deanna Durbin's contract to Carl Laemmle and Universal gave her a grand debut in Three Smart Girls. The three are the Craig sisters played by Nan Grey, Barbara Read, and Durbin as the youngest and the one with the musical talent. But all three are on a mission to bring their mother and father back together.

The girls are vacationing in Switzerland when word comes that dear old dad who's been divorced from mom for years is about to be married again. Back to New York come the sisters to save father Charles Winninger from the clutches of mercenary Binnie Barnes and her even more mercenary mother Alice Brady.

While on the mission Grey and Read get themselves some romantic involvement also with Dusty King and Ray Milland. It gets a bit complicated though when Read thinks that Milland is a no account count that King hired to woo Barnes away from Winninger. Actually Milland is a titled gent, the guy that King hired was Mischa Auer.

In the first of her many roles in the guise, Deanna Durbin plays little Miss Fix-it and solves everybody's problems in the end with a few songs to go with it. It was a formula that worked well for Universal, pulling the studio back from inherent bankruptcy. Abbott&Costello would later make it turn a profit.

Three Smart Girls got Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Sound and Best Original Story. The fashions and mores of the time place it firmly in the Depression Thirties. I doubt it could ever be made today again.

Where would you find a voice like Deanna Durbin's?