Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 28: Another Dose of Double D Action

In today's world that has lost its innocence if a film was released today called 100 Men and a Girl and the poster says of its leading lady, 'she thrills you again', you'd immediately think that it was a dodgy top shelf release. Although in the more innocent times of the mid-1930s, 100 Men and a Girl was another film in the cannon of Deanna Durbin who I previously became aware of when I watched Three Smart Girls. As Durbin had a constant stream of films released I'm guessing most of them had a similar theme in which adults got in trouble and Durbin saved the day. In Three Smart Girls she had help from her on-screen sisters here she is all on her own. The film sees Durbin's Patricia help out her father, an out-of-work trombonist by helping to organise an orchestra for unemployed musicians with the help of a rich old lady named Mrs Frost. However, the day the orchestra is about to begin Mrs Frost goes away and it is Mr Frost, who is unaware of the situation, who Patricia turns to but he turns her away thinking that it is also some kind of practical joke set-up by one of his rich friends. The film has many cases of mistaken identity and Patricia generally saving the day eventually getting famous conductor Leopold Stowtski (playing himself) to postpone a European tour so Mr Frost will be appeased and the orchestra can go on. So Durbin saves the day and everybody is happy

Just as with Three Smart Girls, there are several opportunities for Durbin to break out into song and because this film is all about music she sings quite a fair bit. There's no denying that Durbin has a fine pair of lungs on her but it just seems that it splits up the narrative structure a little bit. There is also a taxi driver who keeps popping up throughout the film and just keeps driving Patricia around and singing to himself. Although I wasn't much for Three Smart Girls I at least found it bearable but 100 Men and A Girl is shorter and has less of a plot. But for some reason it was nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture. The others were for Editing and script (both underserved) and. for a film all about music, it was nominated for sound recording and won best score for Charles Previn a composer who had almost 400 credits to his name between 1936 and 1966. I also wasn't aware at the time I watched the film, that Stowtski was actually a composer and famously conducted most of the music in Disney's Fantasia. Durbin was one of those stars who stopped working after her childhood was behind her, so thankfully I won't have to watch any more of her singing and generally saving the day.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 4: Smarty-Pants

Up to now all of the films I have watched I have known as either being classics (Robin Hood, Top Hat) or just by reputation (Wings). But for the first time I didn't know what to expect from Three Smart Girls, the latest film in my list and a nominee from 1937. That year's Best Picture Oscar went to The Great Ziegfeld and the only other film I recognise on the list from that year is Mr Deeds Goes to Town. Three Smart Girls is a knockabout film about three sisters who try to stop their father from marrying a gold-digging socialite with a manipulative mother. But really it was the launching pad for Deanna Durbin who, by the age of 14, was the biggest paid star in Hollywood at the time but I have never heard of her. Here she plays youngest sister Penny Craig the one who seems to be able to solve all the problems but is also a lot more precocious then her two older sisters. Durbin was also a recording artists and one of the things that really irked me about the film was the need for her to burst into song every so often I felt that these sequences really slowed the film down. Of course this being a basic farce the main joke is mistaken identity as their father's business associate arranges for a penniless Hungarian count to romance the gold-digger but they end up mistaking him for an Anglo-Australian lord who in turn falls for middle sister Kay. In the end though everything works out as Penny runs away their father realises his mistake in marrying the gold-digger and eventually reunites with their mother. The two older sisters find love with the business associate and the lord respectively and the gold-digger and the mother end up on a ferry journey with the Hungarian count. The film was so succesful that it spawned a sequel however Barbara Reed who played Kay did not return for the sequel. Meanwhile Durbin only lasted for about fifteen years in Hollywood ending her film career in the late 1940s and never giving an interview after 1948, while the other actresses who played the girls also had short-lived careers.

I have to say that this is the first film that I didn't really care for. Part of the reason is Deanna Durbin who I would describe as the Shirley Temple of her time, certainly in this film at least. Nan Grey has little to do as eldest sister Joan and Barbara Reed was the only one of the girls that I found particularly likeable. Another problem I had was that their was a massive age gap between Kay and the Lord (played by Ray Milland, the only actor in the film I recognised) but this was never really bought up and was accepted as the norm. There was a bit of fun to be had with the Hungarian count and the manipulative mother as well as the girl's father who was a very weak and harrassed man. At the end of the day it was all very twee and I'm guessing as it was made during the depression in America that people needed cheering up and listening to Durbin's songs and watching all the happy romantic ramblings of The Three Smart Girls. But I for one didn't care for it and didn't think it should've been nominated for an Oscar