Spring Parade

If you're looking for a deep film or a picture that will make it to the Criterion Collection, well, you won't find it here or in any of Deanna Durbin's films. Instead, her films are nice...nice family films and "Spring Parade" is certainly nice.

When the story begins, Ilonka (Deanna Durbin) is at the fair and trying to sell her goat. Instead, she ends up singing and seeing a fortune telling bird...yes bird. And, although the fortune seems ridiculous, the pieces all fall together--beginning with her falling asleep in a pile of hay and the hay ending up in Vienna. This is the nice, idyllic Vienna of old...before WWI and the slaughter of millions. Illona has a bit of an adventure here and ultimately meets the man of her dreams AND the Emperor!

She sings, she's sweet and she wears lovely dresses. Fortunately, she also has some nice support from the likes of Cuddles Sakall and Henry Stevenson! Well worth seeing and a bit like a fairy tale.

My only complaint is that the film itself needs a good restoration to bring out the award-nominated cinematography of SPRING PARADE--and a minor complaint is that DEANNA DURBIN should have had at least two more songs to sing. Otherwise, it's a complete delight.

Her catchiest number is "Waltzing On Clouds" which is reprised at the finale and used for the big ballroom scene. It's a sort of Cinderella story set in Vienna, about a naive country bumpkin who meets her Prince Charming (ROBERT CUMMINGS) who happens to be a drummer in the local band. He's also a musician and love develops when Deanna backs his musical aspirations in a most unusual way.

S.Z. SAKALL stands out as the local baker who employs Deanna in his shop. As in most Durbin films, a series of mishaps and mistaken identities run through the story, only to be patched up before the windup. HENRY STEPHENSON, REGINALD DENNY, SAMUEL S. HINDS, ANNE GWYNNE, FRANKLIN PANGBORN and others help keep the story bubbling along with pleasant performances.

Henry Koster gives a sparkling touch to all the musical moments and Deanna is in fine voice. Robert Cummings again displays comic finesse as he always does in light romantic comedies.

One of Durbin's best films from the early '40s and it should be available on DVD.

Thought I reviewed this the other day, but apparently, that never posted. This is probably Deanna Durbin's best effort. She is most natural in the role; one suspects that the director brought out the closest expression of the real girl, here. It gains further power from the remarkable performances of a strong supporting cast. For example, the Baker--played by a well known supporting figure in movies over a couple of decades, also seems most natural here, compared to any other role, in which this reviewer has seen him. His story nephews, here, are far more natural, far better developed than they were in a W.C. Fields movie released in the same era. So too, are other familiar performers from the same era. Was Deanna, the Director, or a combination, the spark that brought out the best in almost everyone? Who can say. But the movie, on a modest budget, perhaps, communicates real joy to the viewer--real cinema magic, that has held up for me from the time I saw it first (seven times) at age 6 1/2 and 7, till I bought DVD's for myself and some other members of my family, within the past year.

It was my favorite movie in 1941. Viewed again, frequently, over the past seven months, it remains my favorite movie. (And that despite the fact that I am usually not that great a fan of musicals!)

Deanna Durbin sang with one of the most beautiful voices ever recorded. This film generously preserves some fine samples of that fact. But perhaps the prospective viewer should know that its story line is much simpler than film stories today where intricate plot twists and violent thrills are expected. Director Henry Koster crafted a sweet comedy about a superstitious, but strong-minded country girl who is fated to meet a self-centered, but talented, corporal who tries to act like a big shot. Henry Koster proves his craftsmanship in his ability to knit together so simple a story and make it interesting and even, in places, arresting. Durbin plays a Hungarian peasant from Szilagy-Somlyo. (It's fun to hear her say it! It happened to be producer Joe Pasternak's childhood home town. Also, how amusing it is to see Durbin, an "All-American Girl," dressed up rather like Eva Braun! Durbin is so beautiful that it does not matter.) The title SPRING PARADE makes no sense to the story line, and that is a clue to understanding the larger, but sad, history of this film. The truth is that the film was first made by Pasternak in 1934, when he produced movies for Universal Studios in Austria and Hungary. Today the first film is identified by either of two names, FRÜHLINGSPARADE or FRÜHJAHRSPARADE, which mean "spring's parade." It tells a probably somewhat fictionalized story of the composition of a famous Austrian military march, the "Deutschmeister Regiments Marsch" by Wilhelm August Jurek in 1893. In the story Jurek is inspired by the rhythmic tapping of his girlfriend in an open-air Viennese restaurant. The climax of the story comes at the end of the film when Emperor Francis Joseph I praises the march while reviewing his troops. Jurek's regiment plays it while passing by. The title SPRING PARADE in that context makes sense. In the Durbin version, the march is replaced by the composition of a waltz. In 1934, Hitler had been chancellor only a year, and a story about a popular march from 1893 was unexceptional. By 1940, however, a movie about a rousing German march would be exceptional. The year 1893 gives the viewer of SPRING PARADE a peg to hang the story on. Now we know that it comes after the assassination of the Empress Elisabeth (Sisi). It adds poignancy to the scenes of the lonely emperor in his royal apartments. In the 1934 film, Joe Pasternak made a big mistake. The screen credits attributed the story to Ernst Marischka, but, in fact, Marischka wrote the screen play from an original story by Ernst Neubach, who was not credited. After World War II, Neubach settled in France. In 1949, he sued Universal Studios for violation of his copyright, and won. Universal Studios lost all rights to, what was for them, a most cherished film. And it disappeared from the public square. No studio-made VHS, DVD, or Blu-Ray disc has ever appeared. One can reasonably wonder about its current status as a property. Has it passed into the public domain? In 1955, FRÜHJAHRSPARADE was remade in color by Ernst Marischka with the title DIE DEUTSCHMEISTER, starring a young Romy Schneider. Wouldn't it be nice if, say, a manufacturer like the Criterion Collection would release a three-film set with FRÜHLINGSPARADE/FRÜHJAHRSPARADE (1934), SPRING PARADE (1940), and DIE DEUTSCHMEISTER (1955), all restored with extras like sections, subtitles, and commentary? Detailed information about SPRING PARADE can be downloaded in PDF format from the academic journal Modern Austrian Literature, Volume 32, Number 3 (or 4), 1999, Special Issue: Austria in Film. The paper is "Spring Parade (1940): Imperial Austria Lives Again (at Universal)," by Jan-Christopher Horak, pp. 74-86. The Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center of the U. S. National Archives at Culpeper, Virginia, owns a copy of SPRING PARADE, and they have given it at least three public showings. It is probably a clean positive without breaks. The music of SPRING PARADE is significant, with a fine march, two waltzes, and a comic song by Prof. Robert Stolz from 1934. The talented Gus Kahn contributed new lyrics to the music that Durbin sings. Charles Previn of Universal added his own march, which is very fine and needs to be heard today. Finally, Mr. Kahn wrote lyrics to Hans J. Salter's "Blue Danube Dream," which re-works the "Blue Danube Waltz." Durbin's performance of this is magnificent. Just on the music alone this film has cultural significance. It and its sister films should be conserved, restored, and seen again as they were meant to be seen.

It's a crying shame the studio never released this on video...I have seen this movie and it is easily one of Deanna's best! Durbin comes off with even more of her famous spunk and "atitude" that we all know and love. Her supporting cast is first rate and the songs really add color and warmth to the picture. Set in Vienna Austria,this is the only movie where the storyline is contained fully outside of the USA. It happens to be Deanna's shortest film but it is not lacking in the entertainment department as it will have you chuckling constantly especially the beginning of the movie where Deanna's character Ilonka tries to sell her goat!