ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Cineanalyst "Three Smart Girls" is a dated family comedy, which somewhat resembles the later "The Parent Trap" films (1961 and 1998), as others have mentioned, and its lightweight for a Best Picture Oscar nominee, but I see its appeal. The narrative, while convoluted, can be fun to follow because of all its twists and turns--many of which involve the tried and true comedic formulae of masquerade and mistaken identity. Plus, technically, it's a competently put together vehicle for Universal's "new discovery," juvenile actress and singing soprano Deanna Durbin.In it, a mother and her three daughters, along with a maid, are living in Switzerland. They find out that their ex-husband and estranged father of 10 years is set to remarry. Despite a decade of no contact with the man, this upsets the girls deeply. Bizarrely and pathetically, his portrait and pictures populate their home. The youngest girl, Peggy (played by Durbin), comes up with the idea to travel to New York to meet the old man--a father she has no memory of, while her two older sisters, now young women, would only have childhood memories of him--and to make him remarry their mother. When we meet the man, it turns out that he's a deadbeat dunderhead, as well as a successful businessman of some sort, who's being taken advantage of by his gold-digging fiancée and her mother. Now, 80 years past this film, when divorce is commonplace and women's fortunes aren't necessarily tied to keeping a man, at least in the Western world, this film's setup seems particularly ridiculous. Clearly the girls have done well without him, and, at first at least, he clearly wants nothing to do with them, so, good riddance, you'd think. But, no, this is the era when the Hays Code was enforced, so no such depiction of divorce will stand.This coupling extends further to the two older sisters, who each find their own beau in the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Peggy serenades her father--literally, by singing "Someone to Care for Me" to him, as well as with her childish antics and vulnerability bringing out her daddy's previously-suppressed parental instincts. Durbin sings as though she's performing in an opera--her three songs mainly constituting the musical part of this family comedy. This style of singing is quite dated itself, as far as mainstream movies go, but the final song is woven into one of the picture's many scenes of masquerading. Peggy sings to police officers in an attempt to convince them that she's not who she actually is, but rather is in New York to perform at the opera. The main masquerade, besides the gold digger pretending to be in love with rich men, involves the girls and one of their beau's enlisting a Latin lover type, a gigolo Count, to seduce the father's fiancée, Donna, by him pretending to be rich, when in reality he's a poor drunkard. Another man, who is really wealthy and not a drunk, however, is mistaken by the girls for the Count. The rich man pretends to be the poor, drunk Count who pretends to be wealthy to seduce Donna; all the while, he's performing this double case of masquerade because he's attracted to one of the daughters, instead.Such masquerade and mistaken identity plots have been a staple of comedies prior to "Three Smart Girls," including quite a few silent films I've seen based primarily on that theme, and it has continued to be popular--the later "Some Like It Hot" (1959) being one of the best, for example--but it still works here and may even benefit from the plot's overall convolution. Part of the appeal is that it's self-referential, by actors playing characters who act as other characters within the film, and the mistaken identity referring to the spectator's own suspension of disbelief or absorption in the story and characters. Otherwise, "Three Smart Girls" suffers from being dated and contrived and from the "three smart girls" being rather unsophisticated and obnoxious. Technically, wipes are used frequently for editing transitions, and there's a side-by-side multiple-exposure shot of a telephone conversation within wedding rings. Ultimately, there's still some charm left in this classic.

tavm 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.

Terrell-4 Deanna Durbin, then 14 and just under contract to MGM, made a short feature in 1936 which paired her with Judy Garland, a year younger, in the first film for both of them. Louis B. Mayer then decided he didn't need two competing young singers, placed his bet on Garland and let Durbin go. Universal immediately signed Durbin, rushed her into Three Smart Girls and rewrote the screenplay to pump up her part. She's billed last, but with the typographic equivalent of neon lights around her name. Universal was convinced Durbin would be a smash, and they were right. Three Smart Girls is less a musical and more a screwball comedy, and Durbin, 15 when the movie was released, carries it with aplomb. She's Penny Craig, and she and her older sisters, Joan and Kay, are determined to save their father, who had divorced their mother, from the clutches of an elegant gold digger with a fierce mother. They talk their way from Switzerland, where they live, to New York City, where their father lives. They plan not just to break up their father's wedding but to reunite their father with their mother, who after ten years apart still loves the guy. Is there any doubt that Durbin will sing a song or two in her warm, luscious soprano? Nope. Is there any doubt the girls will succeed...with Kay and Joan finding love and matrimonial material along the way? Nope, again. Years later Durbin was quoted as saying that she couldn't keep playing little Miss Fixit forever. She was right, of course, but in Three Smart Girls, her first feature movie, she has little Miss Fixit down pat. Durbin is funny, determined, resourceful, energetic and, of all things, natural. Her personality is so genuine that it makes this comedy -- a mix of farce, confusion, good intentions and cheerful avarice -- downright endearing. Durbin carries the movie with ease. It's a lot of fun watching her hold her own against the likes of Binnie Barnes as Donna Lyon, the woman with her hooks in Penny's rich father, played by Charles Winninger, who was no slouch at stealing scenes, either. Alice Brady, who played the dithering matron in My Man Godfrey, plays Donna Lyons' mother, who is even more of a gold digger than her daughter. The last of the accomplished farceurs is Ray Milland as Lord Michael Stuart, who through a contrived and amusing mix-up is mistaken for Mischa Auer. Three Smart Girls holds up well as a light-weight and amusing comedy of manners and mix- ups. So does Deanna Durbin as a brand-new star, who with her huge success saved Universal's bacon.

FISHCAKE It has been said that Deanna Durbin invented teenagery. This first film was one of the best. The humorous story presented a delightful 14 year old Deanna, a little beauty with a gorgeous voice, as the "Miss Fixit" in a family split by divorce. For plot summary, see other IMDb entries, but quickly Deanna and her two older sisters plan to go to America from Switzerland to prevent their father from remarrying. With an excellent supporting cast especially Barbara Read and Nan Grey as the sisters, good direction and editing, the film succeeds in captivating one even on subsequent viewings. Of Deanna's three songs, only "Il Bacio" is from the classical repertoire, but when she sings it in that police station scene, the film's place in history is assured. At least it was for this viewer who at the age of 15 was smitten for life with both Deanna and classical music. One of the many nice touches that occur throughout THREE SMART GIRLS is the brief glimpse of the drunk stretching his neck for a final glimpse of Deanna as the cops hustle him by! One unfortunate result of the success of this film was that subsequent writers for Durbin vehicles became locked into the "Miss Fixit" theme, which quickly became stale. Deanna herself never did. Her stature as an actress is more questionable than her charisma, which she certainly had. It seems to me that, like many another film personality, she substituted "naturalness" for the histrionic ability that she lacked. The ploy worked well for 21 feature films.