Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Terrell-4 Deanna Durbin, then 14 and just under contract to MGM, made a short feature in 1936 which paired her with Judy Garland, a year younger, in the first film for both of them. Louis B. Mayer then decided he didn't need two competing young singers, placed his bet on Garland and let Durbin go. Universal immediately signed Durbin, rushed her into Three Smart Girls and rewrote the screenplay to pump up her part. She's billed last, but with the typographic equivalent of neon lights around her name. Universal was convinced Durbin would be a smash, and they were right. Three Smart Girls is less a musical and more a screwball comedy, and Durbin, 15 when the movie was released, carries it with aplomb. She's Penny Craig, and she and her older sisters, Joan and Kay, are determined to save their father, who had divorced their mother, from the clutches of an elegant gold digger with a fierce mother. They talk their way from Switzerland, where they live, to New York City, where their father lives. They plan not just to break up their father's wedding but to reunite their father with their mother, who after ten years apart still loves the guy. Is there any doubt that Durbin will sing a song or two in her warm, luscious soprano? Nope. Is there any doubt the girls will succeed...with Kay and Joan finding love and matrimonial material along the way? Nope, again. Years later Durbin was quoted as saying that she couldn't keep playing little Miss Fixit forever. She was right, of course, but in Three Smart Girls, her first feature movie, she has little Miss Fixit down pat. Durbin is funny, determined, resourceful, energetic and, of all things, natural. Her personality is so genuine that it makes this comedy -- a mix of farce, confusion, good intentions and cheerful avarice -- downright endearing. Durbin carries the movie with ease. It's a lot of fun watching her hold her own against the likes of Binnie Barnes as Donna Lyon, the woman with her hooks in Penny's rich father, played by Charles Winninger, who was no slouch at stealing scenes, either. Alice Brady, who played the dithering matron in My Man Godfrey, plays Donna Lyons' mother, who is even more of a gold digger than her daughter. The last of the accomplished farceurs is Ray Milland as Lord Michael Stuart, who through a contrived and amusing mix-up is mistaken for Mischa Auer. Three Smart Girls holds up well as a light-weight and amusing comedy of manners and mix- ups. So does Deanna Durbin as a brand-new star, who with her huge success saved Universal's bacon.

HarlowMGM This movie made 14-year-old Deanna Durbin a big star in 1936 and was such a hit it was one of the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award that year. It's easy to see why audiences took to Deanna so quickly, she was a beautiful little girl with a stunning voice and she's an appealing young actress even if the script occasionally calls for her to occasionally behave perilously close to a brat or saddles her with predictable "movie kid" wisecracks or self-consciously cute bits. The movie itself is actually not one of Deanna's better films although it remains perhaps her most famous. I personally prefer Deanna as an elegant young romantic lead in her twenties in her 1940's films rather than her early films as a chirpy teen sensation.The biggest problem with the movie is the plot and sketchily written characters. Very little of the story rings true. The movie opens with Deanna and her sisters in Switzerland (!!!) where they have lived with their mother for a decade following her divorce from a prominent New York businessman. "Mummy" (the girl's saccharine name for her) has been pining away for Daddy darling all the years and now is devastated to learn he is about to remarry. The girls plot to go to New York and stop the impending marriage. Just why they should care is curious - Daddy clearly hasn't given them a thought in ten years and indeed upon their return to the states fails to express any genuine delight at seeing them again and in fact wants them to go back where they came from almost as much as his fiancée Binnie Barnes and her plotting mother Alice Brady does. The girls behave rather horribly for young women supposedly brought up well (although it's played for "cutes"), screaming and running in restaurants and making nasty cracks about someone they don't know at all. Daddy's complete lack of warmth toward them in the first reels doesn't faze them a bit and they don't even seem to notice it nor is the audience apparently supposed to. Binnie Barnes as the other woman is almost (unintentionally) sympathetic given that old man and his kids.Deanna sings several numbers and dominates the proceedings but the actresses playing her sisters have a good bit of screen time too, both of them having romances with adult men although they are clearly teen-aged (though the movie tells us they are "grown up"). Neither Nan Grey or Barbara Read however can overcome the script's traps quite as successfully as Deanna but it's possible the director didn't bother much with helping them out of them since the movie is clearly a star vehicle for Miss Durbin. Ray Milland (shortly before reaching stardom) is featured as one of the girl's conquests, a dashing young man who turns out to be even richer than daddy. He is also a decade older than the actress who plays his love interest and it's kind of unseemly watching the 31-year-old Milland wooing Barbara Read (18 and looking younger) although Milland's friendly, likable personality overcomes much of this. Alice Brady is Deanna's main competition as far as being the film's greatest asset, with Brady playing a decidedly more bitchy version of her scatterbrain mother role from so many other films. But is is Deanna's film and she manages perform sincerely in an artificial story and in the last scene is downright true and touching at as she cries to herself for having successfully accomplished her mission.

Neil Doyle MGM dropped Deanna Durbin after one short subject she made in '36 called "Everybody Sings" with Judy Garland. They kept Garland and dropped Durbin, whereby Universal took a chance on Deanna--who turned out to save the studio from bankruptcy with a string of successful, but formula Durbin films. She would go on playing Little Miss Fix-It in a number of vehicles written for the express purpose of exploiting Durbin's wonderful soprano voice.THREE SMART GIRLS, when seen today, is a charming but very dated tale about three teen-age sisters scheming to reunite their parents. It was the sort of thing MGM would later do with JANE POWELL who, like Durbin, had a pleasing soprano voice and was routinely given the same Miss Fix-It roles, usually in an attempt to reunite her parents too.CHARLES WINNINGER is the father who hasn't seen his daughters in ten years. Daughters DEANNA DURBIN, NAN GREY and BARBARA READ are intent on breaking up their father's romance with "the other woman" BINNIE BARNES. A very youthful RAY MILLAND (looking like a matinée idol), provides the romantic interest for one of the girls.It's all played in very broad style, particularly by ALICE BRADY as Barnes' society mother, filmed in ritzy surroundings that must have seemed terribly unreal to Depression-era audiences and Durbin and the girls are a little too self-confident and condescending in their attitudes to be the likable girls they're supposed to be. But none of it bears much resemblance to reality--a fault of many a classic '30s comedy.The material isn't sufficiently bright enough to keep you from wondering when Deanna will sing again--and it's surprising to learn that this was nominated for Best Picture in 1936.Summing up: Definitely not one of my favorite Durbin films even though she shows her perky personality...nor am I fond of the "Penny" character that she plays here...but when she sings, all is forgiven.

Snow Leopard This charming, funny movie combines Deanna Durbin's numerous talents with a far-fetched but enjoyable story, a set of interesting characters, and a cast and settings that make it all work. It combines the feel of the old screwball comedies with a little of the pace of a vintage musical, and a dash of commentary on family life. The combination works well, and is not as easy as it looks, as is so often demonstrated by the numerous gauche, hammy "family comedies" of more recent years.Although she was quite young at the time, Durbin already had quite a singing voice, and she also had the kind of stage presence that allows her young character to take command of a scene in ways that would otherwise seem forced. She and the other two of the "Three Smart Girls" make a winning and energetic set of heroines. The rest of the cast members do well, too, and several of them have some very good moments. Charles Winninger makes the indecisive father very believable, Ray Milland's smooth, slightly exaggerated performance fits in nicely, Mischa Auer steals a number of scenes, and Binnie Barnes keeps her "other woman" character from being a stereotype.Despite having a short career, Deanna Durbin left behind several very pleasant, enjoyable pictures that are worth the trouble to find for fans of classic cinema. This early feature is particularly charming.