Mad About Music (1938)

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General		Extras
Category	Musical	Gallery-8 STILLS, POSTER and SHEET MUSIC COVER
Rating
Year Of Production	1938
Running Time	91:56
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Norman Taurog
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Deanna Durbin Herbert Marshall Gail Patrick Arthur Treacher William Frawley Marcia Mae Jones Helen Parrish Jackie Moran Elisabeth Reardon
Case	Custom Packaging
RPI	Box	Music	Harold Adamson Jimmy McHugh

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

    Gloria Harkinson (Deanna Durbin) attends a school in Switzerland. Her father died when she was an infant, and her mother is Gwen Taylor (Gail Patrick) a famous Hollywood movie star. Gwen, urged by her agent "Dusty" (William Frawley), has concealed her teenage daughter's existence, afraid that she will lose her fans if they realise she is old enough to have a fourteen year-old daughter. Gloria, "robbed" of both parents, invents a big game hunter father, forging letters from Africa, which she reads to her schoolgirl friends, as well as to her teachers. Caught up in her ever-widening web of lies - fingers firmly crossed when telling them - Gloria finds herself at the railway station waiting for the invented arrival of her invented father. Watched by her fellow schoolgirls, including friend Olga (Marcia Mae Jones) and enemy Felice (Helen Parrish), Gloria is cornered. In desperation she thrusts her welcoming bunch of flowers at a well dressed gentleman alighting from the train (Herbert Marshall), who is accompanied by his manservant Tripps (Arthur Treacher). The astonished recipient of the flowers turns out to be Richard Todd, a composer - convenient - and the plot then revolves dizzily around the subterfuge Richard becomes part of, aimed at saving Gloria's face at school. We are taken from Switzerland to Paris, and back again to Switzerland for the finale, which finds Gloria with two parents, a youthful romance and a song to sing. I won't spoil the outcome, but I think you will be way ahead of the events on the screen. Nothing like fulfilling the hopes and expectations of an adoring audience!

    This is very light, fluffy stuff with less plot substance than Miss Durbin's previous hit, 100 Men And A Girl. Universal, however, were doing the right thing by their songbird bucket of gold. Joe Pasternak again produces and the other ingredients are first class. Deanna looks most attractive, slimmer and maturing into a lovely young woman. The sets are excellent, even if the overly quaint exteriors of the Swiss school look like a very large stage set and the village streets are straight from Universal's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Frankenstein. Deanna has a new director, Norman Taurog (1938 Oscar nominee for Boys' Town) and she emerges from the film with yet a third natural and charming performance. Herbert Marshall is the consummate gentleman and works beautifully with Miss Durbin in their charming scenes together. As the aspiring young beau, Tommy, Jackie Moran is most effective and there is excellent work, as you would expect, from Arthur Treacher, William Frawley (I Love Lucy) and Gail Patrick.

    Musically the film is extremely strong, with three new songs by Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh. Deanna's first song is her major hit, I Love To Whistle, sung as she and about twenty other "young ladies" ride pushbikes through a "Swiss" country lane. The original 78 rpm recording was a BIG hit on "The Hit Parade" when the film was first released. It is reprised twice in the film, once with the Cappy Barra Harmonica Ensemble (octet)  in a Swiss inn and then on a train as Gloria tries to find Richard . The song is even worked into the "dramatic" action of the film. Then we have Chapel Bells, beautifully sung by the star with "daddy" at the piano and for the finale A Serenade to the Stars. In addition there is Gounod's Ave Maria, Deanna accompanied by The Vienna Boys' Choir, gloriously sung and photographed.

    Movies such as Mad About Music are of a different time, a time with different sensibilities and values. In talking about these films we feel invited us to use adjectives like "charming", "delightful" and "endearing" - words which seem to have gone from our vocabulary, words that are dated and definitely not "cool". I am delighted to be totally "uncool" and admire the charming pleasures of this film and its endearing - and talented - young star, whom I've only just come to appreciate.

Video

    Considering the age of this film - over seventy years - the movie looks very good indeed.
    The film is presented in a 4x3 transfer, with the opening credits slightly reduced to prevent any written information on the extremes of the image being lost. The screen then reverts to 1.33:1 full screen, the original presentation having been 1.37:1.
    There has obviously been some clean-up done on the print, as there are no cue marks in evidence. In fact I noticed only one film artefact, a scratch which appeared for a second down Marcia Mae Jones' face (26:25). The image throughout is very clean and clear, with a minute jump/cut (11.50) due to damage - maybe one frame.
    The image is totally steady for the length of the film.
    The picture is bright and detailed, with a wide grey scale. Blacks are deep and solid while the is no flare on the whites.
    Apart from soft-focus close-ups, the picture is pleasingly sharp - the small printing in the credits is easily legible - with barely noticeable grain, no low level noise and good shadow detail. No aliasing noticed at all..
           
    The disc is single layered.
  
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

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.
    The dialogue is clear and sharp with not one syllable indistinct or any sync problems.
    There is a small amount of background hiss/crackle in some sections of the film, but barely noticeable. There is one pop (11:50) accompanying probably one missing frame, but no dropouts.
    The reproduction of the music is, of course, way below the quality of today's recordings, but the excellent orchestrations are full with only a small amount of distortion occurring in the loudest orchestral and vocal passages.
 

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
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 from the film, with music from the credits behind.
    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 eight black and white publicity stills, a poster reproduction and the front of the sheet music for I Love To Whistle. No sound.

    

    There is no current release of Mad About Music  in Region 1.
    There is a Region 2 release of the nineteen disc Deanna Durbin Collection, which is priced at more than double that of the Australian release.
    Region 2 does have individual titles from the box set available separately.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall