Nonureva Really Surprised!

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

kidboots Deanna Durbin really did save Universal from bankruptcy and enabled it to remain a big studio. By the mid 30s most of the big directors that had been at Universal eg Milestone, Browning and Wyler had gone. Only James Whale remained but his prestigious horror films were behind him. Deanna and Judy Garland appeared in a short "Every Sunday" and initially Garland was suggested for the role of Penny in "Three Smart Girls". When Garland was unavailable Universal switched to Durbin. Initially she had been definitely a supporting player but her potential was so vivid that the script was rewritten to make her the star. Directed by Henry Koster the film had a European touch.The film starts with a beautiful panorama of a lake in "Switzerland". The "three smart girls" of the title - three sisters, Joan (Nan Grey), Kay (Barbara Read) and Penny (Deanna Durbin) are sailing with Penny giving her glorious voice to "My Heart is Singing". All is not too well on the home front - their father is planning to remarry a younger woman (Binnie Barnes) so the three girls with the help of their trusty nurse (Lucille Watson) decide to go to New York and reunite him with their mother. Lucille Watson is best remembered for her role as Robert Taylor's stern mother in "Waterloo Bridge" (1941).Donna is a gold-digger who, along with her scatty mother (Alice Brady), is determined to marry Judson Craig (Charles Winninger). For someone with no film experience Deanna is wonderful as Penny, a typical pesky, over enthusiastic kid sister and she is as pretty as a picture. When she sings "Someone to Care for Me" to her father you will just melt - what a glorious voice she had. She also has one of the funniest lines in the film. When her father consoles her with "I'll take you to the zoo tomorrow", she replies "Oh I can see enough monkeys around here"!!!With the help of Bill Evans (John King) they decide to hire a "count" (Mischa Auer)to romance Donna. They arrange to meet at a nightclub but due to a mix-up Lord Michael Stuart (Ray Milland) is mistaken for the count and Donna falls for him (she thinks he owns half of Australia!!!) The plan backfires as he falls for Kay and Donna wants to hasten her marriage to Judson.Penny decides to take matters into her own hands and runs away. She is taken to the local police station where she charms the cops with her rendition of "Il Bacio" (she is trying to convince them she is a young opera singer.) Everything ends happily with their mother (Nella Walker) sailing over to patch things up with their dad and in the meantime Donna makes the acquaintance of the phoney count (Mischa Auer) and sails off to Australia with him.Highly recommended.

arieliondotcom You will recognize the plot immediately. Daughters of a divorced couple trying to get Mom and Dad back together again. Yes, that was the theme of The Parent Trap in the 60s, 80s and 90s. But here's the spooky thing. Even though Deanna Durbin was younger than the 21 year old Hayley Mills while playing the doting daughter(s) roles, Durbin looks much older, as in adult. And so do all of her so-called siblings. And this confusion between adult and child goes throughout the film. The girls are dressed in cute little sailor outfits but look ridiculous in them as the director seems to take pains to point out their ample tops and tushies throughout the film. So you're constantly torn between thinking of them as children or women. When Ray Milland and others start "hitting on" them you get the feeling as if they're pedophiles, and you might be one, too for noticing those tushies and tops the director was pointing out. Teens or temptresses, little girls or little foxes, you are never quite sure what you're supposed to be thinking of them as.The parents, too, seem very old and the whole film seems very dated.It is a rusty version of the Parent Trap and you should avoid it, or at least ensure your tetanus shots are up to date if you don't believe me.

blanche-2 Deanna Durbin, Nan Grey and Barbara Read are "Three Smart Girls" in this Universal film from 1936, which introduces Deanna Durbin to film audiences. It also stars Ray Milland, Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, John King, Binnie Barnes and Alice Brady. It's a sweet story about three young women, now living in Switzerland with their divorced mother, who hear their father (Winninger) is marrying again. Not having seen him in 10 years and knowing their mother still loves him, they board a ship to America, with the help of the housekeeper/nanny, determined to stop the wedding. Realizing that the intended, called "Precious" (Barnes) is nothing but a gold-digger aided and abetted by her mother (Brady), they arrange for her to be introduced to a wealthy Count. This is arranged by their father's accountant (King). The man he chooses is a full-time drunk (Auer), but the girls mistake him for an actual wealthy count (Milland). What a mess.This is a delightful film, not cloying or overly sugary at all, with some nice performances, particularly by Auer, Milland, Barnes and Brady. The young women are pretty and all do good work. The emphasis, of course, is on young Durbin, who is a natural actress and a beautifully-trained singer. In fact, her voice as a youngster is much more even than it would be as an adult - she has no trouble with the high notes, as she did later on because she put too much weight in the middle voice. She sings a delightful "Il Bacio" in a police station.One of the nicest things about the film is to see the father, played by Charles Winninger, not want his children around - until he sees them and gets to know them. Barnes as the gold-digger isn't all that young, but the girls' mother looks way up there, so the inference probably was the older man seeking his youth with a younger, more glamorous woman. In fact, he finds the youth he was seeking in his daughters.Universal gives Durbin the big star buildup here - she has the final shot in the movie. Ray Milland at this point was still paying his dues, and it will probably be a surprise even to film fans how young and attractive he is.Very entertaining and of course, this led to a sequel and big stardom for Deanna.

cclowell I'm surprised at the comments from posters stating that Jane Powell made the same type of films Deanna Durbin did. Although they were both young sopranos whose film images were crafted by Joe Pasternak, if this film is any indication, they were almost polar opposites.While, in THREE SMART GIRLS, Durbin plays an impulsive "Little Miss Fixit," who, after some setbacks, manages to reunite her divorced parents, in its' semi-remake, THREE DARING DAUGHTERS, Jane Powell almost destroys the marriage between her screen Mom Jeanette MacDonald and new stepfather Jose Iturbi when she refuses to accept him and strong arms her younger siblings into rejecting him, too. From the Durbin and Powell films I've seen, I'd say these disparate qualities permeate the early films of both of these talented young performers.As for Durbin's performance in THREE SMART GIRLS, I find it completely winning, and most impressive. Although it's clear from her occasionally shrill and over-emphatic line readings in some of the more energetic scenes that this is an early film for Deanna, watching the self-confident, knowing and naturally effervescent manner in which she delivers her lines and performs overall, and the subdued and tender manner she projects the more serious scenes, you'd never guess that this was the FIRST film role of a 14 year-old girl whose prior professional experience consisted almost exclusively of two years of vocal instruction. Given that this film, and Durbin herself, were much publicized at the time as "Universal's last chance," the production must have been an impossibly stressful situation for a film novice of any age, but you'd never know it from the ease and assurance Durbin displays on screen. Although she's clearly still developing her acting style and demeanor before the camera (this was equally true of the early performances of much more experienced contemporaries like Garland, Rooney, O'Connor and Jane Powell), Durbin projects an extraordinary presence and warmth on camera that is absolutely unique to her, and, even here, in her first film, she manages to remain immensely likable despite the often quick-tempered impulsiveness of her character, and though she's occasionally shrill, she never for a second projects the coy and arch qualities that afflicted many child stars, including Jane Powell and some of the other young sopranos who followed in the wake of her success.In short, like all great singing stars, Durbin was much more than just a "beautiful voice." On the other hand, while Durbin's pure lyric soprano is a truly remarkable and glorious instrument, the most remarkable thing about it, to me, was the way she is able to project her songs, without the slightest bit of affectation or "grandnes" that afflict the singing of adult opera singers like Lily Pons, Grace Moore and Jeanette MacDonald in films of the periodThe film is also delightful, heavily influenced by screwball comedy, it backs Durbin up with a creme-de-la-creme of first-class screwball pros such as Charles Winninger, Binnie Barnes, Alice Brady, Ray Milland and Mischa Auer. The story is light and entertaining. True, it's hardly "realistic," but why would anyone expect it to be? If you want :"realistic" rent THE GRAPES OF WRATH or TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. On the other hand, if you're looking for a genuine, sweet, funny and entertaining family comedy with a wonderfully, charismatic and gifted adolescent "lead," and terrific supporting players, this film won't let you down.