Three Smart Girls (1936)

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General		Extras
Category	Musical	Gallery-Photo-Ten black and white publicity stills without sound. Scene Synopsis-A list of ten scenes - no thumbnails or sound.
Rating
Year Of Production	1936
Running Time	80:36
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Henry Koster
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Deanna Durbin Charles Winninger Binnie Barnes Alice Brady Barbara Read Ray Milland Mischa Auer Ernest Cossart Lucile Watson John 'Dusty' King Nella Walker Hobart Cavanaugh Nan Grey
Case	Custom Packaging
RPI	Box	Music	Walter Jurmann Bronislau Kaper Charles Previn

" ... the 1940s sweetheart, Deanna Durbin!" 

    Deanna Durbin was just fifteen when Three Smart Girls, her first film for Universal, was released. She had been contracted by MGM for a feature that was eventually cancelled, but she did make a short musical film for that studio, Every Sunday, which teamed her with another young singer MGM were testing, Judy Garland. Louis B. Mayer signed Judy to a long term contract, but let Deanna go. After success on Eddie Cantor's radio show, Universal cast the young soprano in Three Smart Girls and assigned director Henry Koster to coach the hopeful starlet. Deanna delivered a performance that instantly endeared her to audiences who flocked to her films. The receipts from Deanna Durbin's first two films reportedly saved Universal from bankruptcy and by the time she was twenty-one Deanna Durbin was Hollywood's top box office earner. In 1948, after thirteen years and twenty-one films for Universal, Deanna Durbin turned her back on her career and retired to France where she still lives, repeatedly refusing to be coaxed back into the limelight.

 
    The Oscar nominated script for Three Smart Girls by Adele Comandini and Austin Parker is a mix of screwball comedy and sentimental family fare concerning the three Craig sisters, Joan (Nan Grey), Kay (Barbara Read) and the youngest Penny (Deanna Durbin), who live in Switzerland - beside a lake, where else?- with their divorced mother, Dorothy (Nella Walker) and housekeeper Martha (Lucile Watson). The girls' father, Judson (Charles Winninger) lives in New York and has not seen his daughters for ten years. The girls read in the paper that their father is planning to marry Donna Lyons (Binnie Barnes). Penny suggests a plan to go to New York to stop the marriage, drag their father back to Switzerland and reunite their parents. With Martha's supervision and financial help the "shock troops" set sail for the United States where they soon discover that Donna is a blonde gold-digger who has definite plans for their father. Major scheming is the order of the day and complications and confusions abound, hilariously involving mistaken identity between Lord Michael Stuart (a very young and handsome Ray Milland) and Count Arisztid (the always amusing and not so handsome Mischa Auer). 

   This trivial fluff comes from a time in movies when the most used adjectives were "gay" and "grand", and black Americans only appeared as porters, maids and shoeshines. There is a particularly offensive moment involving a maid who dares to contribute to a discussion and is rebuffed with a sharp, "Who asked you?" These historical oddities aside, Three Smart Girls is an attractive and entertaining showcase for its young star, and Henry Koster directs with assured style, managing to encourage a delightful performance from his fledgling songbird. Although the film is squarely placed on the fifteen year-old's shoulders, she is provided with formidable support by a gallery of great supporting players including Alice Brady, Hobart Cavanaugh and Franklin Pangborn, with a very brief appearance by Dennis O'Keefe. Although her screen persona - as well as her dentures -  is not quite refined in this her first feature, Miss Durbin is surprisingly natural and unaffected, and her singing is glorious with Gus Kahn and Bronislau Kaper providing two new songs for the film, "My Heart Is Singing" and "Someone to Care for Me", which became instant "hits". In addition Deanna sings "Il Bacio" ("The Kiss") by Luigi Arditi  and a couple of operatic arias.

    Joe Pasternak produced Three Smart Girls and he did everything to showcase the new star. The importance to Universal of Deanna Durbin and her first film is evident in every frame, and at Oscar time their efforts were rewarded with three nominations, including one for Best Picture. The opening credits end announcing "Universal's new discovery Deanna Durbin", and we hear a soaring soprano voice as the title dissolves into a close-up of Deanna singing "My Heart Is Singing". She is on a sailing boat in Switzerland with her two sisters - some quite nice location work combined with rear projection. As the plot takes us through hotel suites, nightclubs, Park Avenue apartments and Newport estates the sets are very impressive and glamorous, and the women's costumes are attention grabbing. Binnie Barnes wears one number that would look fantastic on any red carpet! Ensuring that everything complements the new star, Pasternak went on to produce the soprano's next five films, until he was lost to MGM where he went on to showcase the talents of that studios soprano songbirds, Jane Powell and Kathryn Grayson.
    So successful was Three Smart Girls that Deanna Durbin went on to play Penny Craig in two other films. This release of the films of this great star of the 40s is long overdue, and this first feature in the set is a delightful introduction to a fresh, natural, vibrant talent that can still thrill after seventy years.

Video

    Considering the age of this film - over seventy years - this is a very satisfactory transfer.
    There does not appear to be any major restoration work, although reel cues have been removed and the entire length of the film is free of any debris.
    The final reel does have a split second of image wobble (74:58) and a brief scratch (76:43), but these are the only blemishes detected .
    The image is steady and is presented in a 4x3 transfer with 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the original presentation having been 1.37:1.
    With the exception of the inevitable soft-focus 1930s closeups, the image is sharp and clear, with a very pleasing grey scale - non glaring or flaring whites with deep blacks and everything in between.
    There is a fair amount of grain, but this is not distracting and is soon lost in the generally pleasing image.
    A very small amount of aliasing was noted, principally on a striped T-shirt in the opening sequence (05:18).
        
    The disc is single layered.
  
    

Video Ratings Summary

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Audio

    The seventy-two year old audio is in very good shape.
    There is only one audio track, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 reproduction of the original mono Western Electric Noiseless Recording, which was Oscar nominated.
    The dialogue is clear and sharp with not one syllable indistinct or any sync problems.
    There is barely detectable background hiss, and no pops, crackles or dropouts.
    The reproduction of the music is, of course, way below the quality of today's recordings, but the excellent orchestrations are full and undistorted. A slight edge of distortion only appears on some of Deanna Durbin's vocals, but this is being very picky.

    There are no subtitles on the disc.

Audio Ratings Summary

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Overall

    The box set contains a Sixteen Page Souvenir Booklet.
    Apart from this booklet and the Stills Galleries on five of the titles, there are no other extras on the entire nineteen discs, not even a trailer. The reverse of the slick also contains small reproductions of the Stills Gallery.
    The picture disc reproduces the title's cover.
    There are no subtitles.

Menu    
   

    All menu screens are 4x3.
    
    The main menu design is extremely basic. The screen comprises two stills of the three girls, with music from the credits of the film.
    The options are :
        Play Film
        Scene Index: Selecting this option gives a new screen with two further stills and a list of ten scenes. No thumbnails, no sound.
        Stills Gallery : Selecting this option gives access to ten very nice quality black and white publicity stills, again without sound.

    In Region 1 Three Smart Girls is only available as one of six Deanna Durbin films included in the two-disc Deanna Durbin : Sweetheart Pack. That version does contain the following extras not found on the disc from the local nineteen title set.
    Subtitles : English for the Hearing Impaired
                   Spanish
                   French
    Original Theatrical Trailer/Teaser : (00:58) This does not feature any live action, just a couple of portraits of the star, orchestral background music, and blurb extolling the delights of Deanna Durbin "coming soon to this theatre", including a quote from Eddie Cantor. An interesting little oddity.
    The nineteen title box set has not been released in Region 1, although it was released in Region 2 in 2003 - not sure about the hat-box - where it is more than double the Australian price.

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