Can't Help Singing (1944) |
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Can't Help Singing (1944) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Musical | None | |
| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1944 | ||
| Running Time | 86:38 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Frank Ryan |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Deanna Durbin Robert Paige Akim Tamiroff David Bruce Leonid Kinskey June Vincent Ray Collins Andrew Tombes Thomas Gomez Clara Blandick |
| Case | Custom Packaging | ||
| RPI | Box | Music |
Jerome Kern E.Y. ("Yip") Harburg |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.37:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Good news for those contemplating buying the nineteen disc set Deanna Durbin : The Collection! Roadshow have announced an April price drop to $150 "for Mother's Day". "Here is the miracle musical of all time!
The joyous, glittering cavalcade of Cal-i-for-ni-ay!"
The weakest aspect of this film is its screenplay. Based on a novel, The Girl of the Overland Trail, it concerns a spirited young lady, Caroline Frost (Deanna Durbin) who lives in 1847 Washington with her senator father (Ray Collins) and her aunt (Clara Blandick). Ignoring her father's wishes Caroline "goes west" to follow her lieutenant beau (David Bruce) in order to marry him. En route - in a public bath house - Caroline meets Johnny Lawlor (Robert Paige) who is soon to replace the lieutenant in Caroline's affections. After being hoodwinked out of $500 in a deal to buy a wagon, and having her trunk stolen by two fortune-hunting scallywags (Akim Tamiroff and Leonid Kinskey), Caroline and Johnny join a wagon train heading for Cal-i-for-ni-ay. Not much happens on the way, except that Caroline and Johnny fall in love. When they finally arrive in California everything is resolved in farcical operetta style, with Caroline having beaux coming out of her ears before the final clinch with her one true love.This very skimpy plot owes more to Eueopean operetta than to the maturing American musical, particularly in the rather tiresome antics of Tamiroff and Kinskey, despite their energetic playing.
The decision to film mainly outdoors and in Technicolor accounts for much of the pleasure of this film. With only a handful of exceptions, scenes are shot under the open skies and not on a soundstage. The results are a frequently spectacular image on the screen, both in content and quality. What looks like The Cotton Blossom from Universal's 1936 Show Boat, is seen in full Technicolor splendour. Deanna Durbin's first song is sung while driving a buggy and pair along an open road, without one projected background. In a later song she walks through a glade of pines, then up a hill to finally end up singing from the very brink of the Grand Canyon. Another scene fnds the wagon train resting by a river and dozens of travellers doing their laundry in a beautiful meandering stream. Covered wagons - I counted fifty - wind through glorious countryside. This and much, much more all in superb Technicolor and a stunning print.
This was the only colour film made by Deanna Durbin. Make a small allowance for the Technicolor makeup of the 40s and she looks terrific. Buxom, corsetted, pert and slim she wears the gowns of the period with easy style. All those gowns in one trunk! Her songs are great, whether driving the buggy in the title song, in a bathtub for the reprise, or standing on the brink of the Grand Canyon. That song, Any Moment Now, is the musical highlight. After strolling, singing through the trees, she walks up a hill the towards the canyon. As she stands on the very edge, for the last eight bars it is all stops out! The tempo slows, the orchestra builds, a heavenly choir comes in, bells chime and she soars thrillingly to the climax of the song. A fabulour musical moment.
The disc's cover incorrectly credits this as being Jerome Kern's last score. His last was actually for Fox's Centennial Summer in 1946.The score for Can't Help Singing , with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg (The Wizard of Oz), contains six songs of varying merit. Any Moment Now is a lovely ballad, as is More and More crooned by the star as the lovers lie beside a soundstage lake. The title song is a pleasant and hummable tune, and the chorus song and dance number, Swing Your Sweetheart, is pleasant enough. The two "rousing" ensemble numbers Cal-i-for-ni-ay and Elbow Room are unimaginative and dull, made even more so by boring staging. Deanna marches through one, and everyman and his dog sways through the other. Real amateur musical society "choreography". The "chorus" even mime badly, hardly seeming to know the words.The Kern songs are woven through the very attrractive underscoring, with snatches from the odd "European" folk song thrown in for the scallywags.
Robert Paige, whom I suspect was dubbed, is an OK leading man, but looks distressingly like Gomer Pyle at times. It's a pity that the soprano couldn't have been given a male costar with a voice to match hers, or to at least come close it.Beside Tamiroff and Kinskey, competent character players do their usual thing - Ray Collins, Clara Blandick, June Vincent and Thomas Gomez. David Bruce, as the lieutenant who is initially pursued by Deanna, has very little to do.Bruce was impressive in a small role in Christmas Holiday and it's a pity he has so little here.
Direction by Frank Ryan is efficient, if unable to inject any vitality into the comic buffoonery, or the crowd scenes. The smaller scenes that concentrate on Durbin and Paige are usually handled extremely well. There is one scene that has him carrying her across a field, talking with the camera tracking very close to them.The whole thing was unusual, attractive and humorous. Maybe the photography by Woody Bredell and W. Howard Greene should get the credit. Bredell had been responsible for the photography of Deanna Durbin's previous two films, His Butler's Sister and Christmas Holiday, in which she had been photographed so memorably.
Can't Help Singing is not one of the great screen musicals.Just sit back enjoy the scenery, the amazing quality of the photographic image, the star and her voice.
This print of Can't Help Singing could hardly be better. It is one of the best examples of 1940s Technicolor yet seen on DVD.
The image is presented in a 4x3 transfer with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the original presentation having been 1.37:1.
The image is steady, sharp, without grain and clean.
Detail is exceptional, from the faces in the numerous busy crowd scenes to intricacies on the period costumes.
Shadow detail is excellent , the night scenes looking exceptionally detailed.
Film to video effects were difficult to find, with no instances of low level noise.
There is a split second of aliasing on the edge of a wagon (42:43), but that's all.
Blacks are solid, whites do not flare, and every conceivable colour of the rainbow is produced subtly and beautifully.
Skin tones are very true, and there is no fluctuation of colour from beginning to end.
Film artefacts are almost totally absent. A few white specks appear in the blue skies, and there are two instances of debris (40:20 and 48:28), but otherwise the image looks pristine.
Reel cues are removed, although there is one cue at the end of the film.
This is an absolutely stunning Technicolor transfer. I have in my library a number of much ballyhooed "restorations" that, although good, are not a patch on this.
There are no subtitles and the disc is single layered.
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The audio which accompanies this great print is also very pleasing, with minute, relatively unimportant imperfections.
There is only one language, English, in a Dolby Digital 2.0 reproduction of the original mono Western Electric Noiseless Recording.
All dialogue is crystal clear and the clarity of Deanna Durbin's soprano diction is exceptional.
There are no sync problems - apart from extras who don't know the words of songs.
There is a very slight low level "rumble", which is noticeable only at high volume levels. I preferred to have the music room-filling and did not find this background sound distracting.
There is a rather noisy "pop" which I suspect came from a reel change (48:16). The volume level increased at this point, suggesting the reel change, but there was not the slighest colour or quality shift in the image.
There is very little crackle on the soundtrack, even played at high volume.
Generally the sound is loud, sharp and without a trace of distortion - even on Deanna Durbin's vocals..
The background orchestrations sound sharp, rich and full, with individual instruments clearly coming through in many passages, often to highlight the visual comedy (21:55).
The orchestral accompaniment to the vocals is similarly rich and full, most outstandingly at the end of Any Moment Now.
There are no dropouts.
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The box set of nineteen movies on nineteen discs contains a Sixteen Page Souvenir Booklet.
Apart from this booklet and the Stills Galleries on five of the titles - there is no gallery on Can't Help Singing - there are no extras on the entire nineteen discs, not even a trailer.
The inside of the cover slick has small reproductions of nine stills and the cover of the title song's sheet music.
The picture disc reproduces the title's cover.
There are no subtitles.
All menu screens are 4x3.
The main menu design is extremely basic. The screen comprises two stills from the film, with orchestral audio.
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.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
In Region 1 Can't Help Singing is included in the Deanna Durbin : Sweetheart Pack. Other titles in this pack are Three Smart Girls, Something In the Wind, First Love, It Started With Eve and Lady On A Train.
This Region 1 release includes the original theatrical trailer of Can't Help Singing with picture and sound quality almost as good as the film itself. (02:16)
In Region 2 there are three choices available . The film is included in the nineteen titles box set at more than double the Australian price.It is also included in Deanna Durbin : The Collection Box 2, along with Three Smart Girls Grow Up, First Love, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday and For the Love of Mary, as well as being available separately.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Onkyo-SP500, using Component output |
| Display | Philips Plasma 42FD9954/69c. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080i. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS777 |
| Speakers | VAF DC-X fronts; VAF DC-6 center; VAF DC-2 rears; LFE-07subwoofer (80W X 2) |