Caravane d'amour

There is a reason Deanna Durbin was one of the top Hollywood stars from the mid-Thirties through the Forties. She was a natural actress with a fine face and figure and a deep- throated soprano she knew how to use. She was one of those people the camera loves. Her personality, direct and warm, comes straight across to the audience. She could handle all the immaculate make-up Hollywood gave her as she matured into a young woman, but there always was something of the tomboy about her. She had a natural exuberance, a sense of humor and a good-natured willingness to take pratfalls or march into mud-holes. And she was a professional at her craft. In this movie, Can't Help Singing, watch how she manages to wander through the woods singing, through bushes and over hillocks, avoiding branches, and periodically fronting pretty scenery. This scene is shot in long takes. I have no idea how many takes it took, but Durbin manages to move, sing, smile, emote a bit and hit all of her marks without any sign of effort or evidence of an editor's scissors used to mask mistakes.

By the time Durbin was 14 she was major box office, and stayed there until she retired in 1950 at 29. She never liked the glitz and fan adulation of stardom. She and her third husband left for France right after she retired and that was that. She still lives just outside Paris, has turned down any number of film offers and hasn't granted an interview with anyone since 1949. As a person who was grounded in reality and decided to live her own life, Deanna Durbin gets a tip of my hat.

Can't Help Singing is a lush, colorful musical about a young woman, Caroline Frost, daughter of a wealthy senator, who leaves Washington against the wishes of her father to meet the man she intents to marry. He is a cavalry lieutenant, and the senator has seen to it that his regiment has been sent to California to guard gold during the start of the Gold Rush. Caroline is determined, and along the way has to deal with steamboats, Russian con-men, a cross-country wagon, Indians, finaglers, grafters, boss-men and card sharps. The card sharp winds up holding more than cards. He turns out to be the romantic lead. After 90 minutes of songs, comedy, adventures and the occasional kiss, all ends well for everyone.

This was Deanna Durbin's only color movie and the studio went all out. Can't Help Singing is stuffed with wide-open vistas, detailed studio sets and costumes that would make Vincente Minnelli envious. What makes the movie memorable, however (in addition to Durbin), are two songs from the score by Jerome Kern and E. Y. Harburg. From the moment the movie starts and we see Durbin driving a two-horse carriage singing "Can't Help Singing," it's time to sit back and smile. The number is one of those big, fat, intensely melodic songs that few composers besides Kern could pull off. She sings it twice, the last time part of a production that takes place in an outdoor western bath house. It pops up now and then as a melodic background line. The song works every time. The second Kern/Harburg show-stopper is "Californ-i-ay," where "the hills have more splendor; the girls have more gender." It's another major production number with a big melody and clever lyrics. Everyone and everything from the two leads to giant vegetables take part.

The movie is pleasant enough, although the two Russian con-men get tedious and Durbin's leading man, while manly enough, doesn't make much of an impression. The movie belongs only to Deanna Durbin, as all of her films did. With those two songs from Kern and Harburg, it's worth spending some time with.

Deanna Durbin's one Technicolor movie gives her a decent showcase, and adds a Jerome Kern score plus plenty of good settings and scenery, to make for enjoyable light entertainment and pleasant viewing. Its pluses include Durbin's singing and the colorful outdoors photography.

The period setting makes it different from the stories in most of Durbin's other movies, but fortunately her character (an independent-minded Senator's daughter) is similar enough to many of her other roles, in giving her a lively character with a variety of material to work with. (It wasn't really necessary, though, to make her hair so much lighter - her dark hair would have looked great in color.) The settings range from 1840s Washington DC to the unsettled expanses of the Old West. In itself, the period atmosphere works pretty well, and it also throws in one or two ironic details along the way.

As Durbin's co-star, Robert Paige is a bit bland as a character, but his singing is up to par. Akim Tamiroff has a good role as one of the scamps heading west with Durbin's character. In smaller roles, Ray Collins and Thomas Gomez give good performances. The combination of Durbin's voice, energy, and charm with the period story and settings works rather well.

This Durbin vehicle had just three songs worthy of Jerome Kern and E. Y. Harburg: "More and More," "Californ-i-ay," and the title song. These are really wonderful pieces, which fortunately recur throughout on a regular basis.

The Technicolor is indeed glorious, and there's nothing wrong with the casting. It's also true that Durbin looks radiant in her first color film.

Alas, the rest of the score is a disappointment, simply lacking in inspiration. They try to beef it up with production values, to little avail. Likewise, the script's just not quite up to Deanna's standards. One can admire the costumes, staging, photography--and those three songs. Durbin fans will be probably be pleased with everything here; others, probably less so.

It's easy to see the Durbin magic as she lights up the screen with charisma and her beautiful voice. A pleasant trifle for the Durbin DVD "Sweetheart Pack."

You don't need to be a Deanna Durbin fan to find this film delightful. It should appeal to anyone who enjoys traditional musicals like "Oklahoma" and "Showboat".

Can't Help Singing is filled with humor and wit, played with a wink to the audience and genuine gusto--not dated in the least. Akim Tamaroff is especially funny; you can clearly see how he was the model for "Boris Badinov" in the "Bullwinkle" cartoons.

The songs are first rate; Kearn's melodies are beautiful and Harburg's lyric to "Californiay" is full of wit, creativity, and surprises; his other lyrics are well done, but nothing special.

Another layer of delight and interest to someone who knows about the history of movie musicals, like myself, is how far ahead of it's time this film is. The large majority of it is filled outdoors, a lot of it on location. This is unique and innovative in an era when virtually all musicals were filmed inside sound stages with some use of the studio back lot. One of the musical numbers features Durbin in outdoor locations which vary from shot to shot, while she continues to sing seamlessly. This is something that became common a decade or more later, but certainly pioneering in 1944.

Durbin and Paige are both fine singers, most likable, adept at playing the light humor their roles call for. This is a film that should be much better known and appreciated.

Alan Jay Lerner came to France to play her his unfinished score of My Fair Lady, hoping she'd come out of retirement to play Eliza on Broadway; she turned down Kiss Me, Kate and other properties; she would have been wonderful in Showboat...as Anna in the King and I...but all Deanna Durbin wanted was to be a nobody and raise her children out of the spotlight.

At least her youth, voice and acting ability have been preserved, and in "Can't Help Singing," she's preserved in color.

Durbin plays Caroline, a young woman who runs away from home to join the man she loves (David Bruce) in Ft. Badger. Joining a wagon train, she meets and falls for Lawlor (Robert Paige), a gambler. Meanwhile, her father (Ray Collins) is after her, and two con artists posing as Russians (Leonid Kinskey and Akim Tamiroff) keep appropriating her trunk.

If the plot is silly and the Jerome Kern score is nice but not exceptional. However, the score is beautifully sung by Durbin and Robert Paige amidst glorious Utah scenery. Durbin's rich voice never sounded better, and she looks stunning.

I keep reading on this site that Deanna didn't like her last films, but this wasn't one of them. In the only interview she's given since her retirement in 1948, to Richard Shipman in 1983, she said her four last films were awful and Universal wasn't trying very hard with the scripts assigned to her.

This was always the problem with Universal; though she saved the studio from bankruptcy, Universal didn't seek out the best properties for her, and they never seemed to want to spend a lot of money.

For "Can't Help Singing," though, no expense was spared, and it shows.

Forget the plot -- this is a feast for the eye and ear. Sixty-four years after her retirement (she turns 91 in December 2012) Deanna Durbin is still delighting audiences with her singing and acting.