Deanna Durbin on DVD and VHS

Are you craving a Deanna Durbin film and wonder if it is available for home viewing?  We've put together a list of Durbin films  and explain which are currently available for home viewing and in what format. (Please note that all DVD information on this post refers to Region 1 DVDs)

DEANNA DURBIN ON DVD

Deanna Durbin made 21 feature films for Universal Studios and 1 short subject for MGM. Only 11 Durbin feature films are on DVD.

• Universal released The Sweetheart Pack in 2004. It is a set of six Deanna Durbin films on DVD: Three Smart Girls, Something in the Wind, First Love, It Started With Eve, Can't Help Singing and Lady on a Train. You can buy it at Universal Studio's website, TCM.com, Amazon.com or in stores.

• In August 2010, Universal banded together with Turner Classic Movies to release another set of Durbin films in the Deanna Durbin: The Music and Romance Collection. Five DVDs are in this set: Mad About the Music, That Certain Age, Three Smart Girls Grow Up, Because of Him and For the Love of Mary. These films are available as a set or individually at TCM.com and on Amazon.com.

DEANNA DURBIN ON VHS

VHS cover for 3 Smart Girls

Although there are only 11 official Durbin DVDs, there are 18 feature length Durbin movies on VHS. Some movies are available in both formats.

In 1995, Durbin's movies were made available for home viewing for the first time. According to this Washington Post article from January 24, 1995, Universal released four Durbin movies on VHS : Three Smart Girls, One Hundred Men and a Girl, Three Smart Girls Grow Up and It Started With Eve. Universal would later release more Durbin films throughout the late 1990s. They are available  for purchase at Amazon.com. 


Universal Studios owns the rights all Deanna Durbin feature films except one. After leaving Universal to work at MGM Studios, producer Joseph Pasternak bought Ms. Durbin's light comedy It's A Date (1940) from Universal and used it in a remake for his new employer. On September 1, 1998, MGM/UA released It's A Date (1940) on VHS.

VHS - MGM's release of It's a Date

Contact Universal for more information and to request that the remainder of Durbin's films be released on DVD.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment
100 Universal City Plaza Universal Studios, CA. 91608
General Phone: 818.508.9600
www.universalstudios.com

Contact MGM about It's a Date (1940)
MGM Studios
10250 Constellation Boulevard Los Angeles, CA. 9006
Phone for DVD Questions: 888-223-2369

Just for the sake of clarity, the following is a list of all Durbin films (and the short subject), whether they are officially available for home viewing and in what format: DVD or VHS. Click the titles for more information on the movie.

LIST OF DEANNA DURBIN FILMS

VHS cover for 100 Men & a Girl

EVERY SUNDAY(1936) 
Deanna Durbin's 11 minute short subject is owned by MGM and co-stars Judy Garland; you'll find it on the two following Garland films.

Available on DVD? Yes.  A bonus feature on For Me and My Gal (1942)
Available on VHS? Yes.  A bonus feature on Summer Stock (1950)

THREE SMART GIRLS (1936)

Available on DVD? Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1995


ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL (1937)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1995.

MAD ABOUT MUSIC (1938) 
Available on DVD? Yes. Released in TCM's Deanna Durbin:The Music and Romance Collection in 2010.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1996.

THAT CERTAIN AGE (1938)
Available on DVD? Yes. Released in TCM's Deanna Durbin:The Music and Romance Collection in 2010.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1997.

THREE SMART GIRLS GROW UP (1939) 
Available on DVD? Yes. Released in TCM's Deanna Durbin:The Music and Romance Collection in 2010.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1995

VHS cover for It Started With Eve

FIRST LOVE (1939)
Available on DVD? Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1996.

IT’S A DATE(1940)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MGM/UA in 1998.


SPRING PARADE (1940)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? No.

NICE GIRL?(1941)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1997.

IT STARTED WITH EVE(1941)
Available on DVD?Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1995

THE AMAZING MRS. HOLLIDAY (1943) 
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by Universal in 1999.


HERS TO HOLD (1943)
Available on DVD? No.

VHS cover for His Butler's Sister

Available on VHS? No.

HIS BUTLER’S SISTER(1943)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1996

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY(1944) 
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? No.


CAN’T HELP SINGING(1944)
Available on DVD? Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1997.

LADY ON A TRAIN(1945)
Available on DVD? Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1996.

BECAUSE OF HIM(1946) 
Available on DVD?Yes. Released in TCM's Deanna Durbin:The Music and Romance Collection in 2010.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by Universal in 1999.

VHS cover for Up In Central Park

I’LL BE YOURS(1947)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by Universal in 1999.


SOMETHING IN THE WIND(1947)
Available on DVD?Yes. In the Sweetheart Pack released in 2004
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1998.


UP IN CENTRAL PARK(1948)
Available on DVD? No.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1998.


FOR THE LOVE OF MARY (1948)
Available on DVD?Yes. Released in TCM's Deanna Durbin:The Music and Romance Collection in 2010.
Available on VHS? Yes. Released by MCA/Universal in 1998.

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Deanna Durbin's 3rd Wedding Venue is a Perfect Fit

After her retirement from films in the late 1940s, Deanna Durbin married for the third time on December 21, 1950 to director Charles Henri David (Lady On A Train). The ceremony was held in city hall in the French village of Sarreguemines. The Pittsburgh Press remarks about the relative stillness of the proceedings for the movie star, contrasting it with the “showy Hollywood style weddings” seen around postwar France. However, the venue was the perfect beginning for the couple’s new life together.

Pittsburgh Press Announces Durbin Marriage Dec 21, 1950

Ms. Durbin states in a 1952 interview for the Syracruse Herald-Journal,

“I gave a good chunk of my life to the movies and missed a normal girlhood. I am going to run a real home for my own …children.” 

The star further states that same year in the Corpus Christ Times that 

“… I can see how much Jessica [her first child] missed by not having [me around]. When she was a baby, I was at the studio from 6 in the morning until 8 at night. During that time she was in the care of a nurse, and heaven knows what would happen to her while I was at the studio.”

Ms. Durbin and Charles David envisioned a different life for themselves, a quieter existence. Their marriage ceremony reflects the choice and  the town’s history parallels somewhat the bride‘s own life up to that point.

Merdian Daily Journal mentions the engaged couple's plans - Dec 16, 1950

The tranquil town of Sarreguemines, which lies about 47 miles from David’s birthplace, borders Germany at the confluence of the Blies and the Sarre rivers. Much like Deanna Durbin’s multiple and converging talents in the modern movie business, the convenient and vivacious place became very attractive to tradesmen by the end of the 13th century.

The village changed hands between warring states more than once, and was often a possession  of oppressive forces, not unlike a film star with her handlers. City officials note that in the 14th century “Sarreguemines threw off its feudal yoke and became governed by an autonomous municipal body,” much like Ms. Durbin’s move from a profitable but abusive movie star life to a more liberating suburban existence after retiring.

Though the Pittsburgh Press marvels that Ms. Durbin‘s wedding “attracted little attention from the residents….,” and  that “no crowds gathered to cheer or toss rice,” Sarreguemines suits the couple’s resolution to bring sanity and peace to their new family. The village’s history of determination through as series of ups and downs seems a fitting place for Universal Studios’ moneymaking movie phenomenon to throw off the bonds of stardom and march resolutely toward a married life away from Hollywood.

Durbin and David with son Peter, early 1950s

Further Resources

• Ville de SarreGuemines

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It Started With Eve (1941)

Arguably Deanna Durbin’s best movie is It Started With Eve (1941). In addition to near perfect casting, the script brings the romantic comedy genre up a notch or two.

Unable to find his fiancée in time, business tycoon Johnny Reynolds (Robert Cummings) pays struggling singer Ann Terry (Durbin) to pretend to be his fiancée for a few moments to please his fatally ill father, Reynolds Sr. (Charles Laughton).  The deceit goes awry when Reynolds the elder regains his health the next morning and expects the two to marry soon. Johnny’s actual, gold-digging fiancée Gloria Pennington (Margaret Tallichet) is not happy with this arrangement.

It’s difficult to explain how this standard plot is better than that of many other romantic comedies. Perhaps it is the genuine warmth communicated between Reynolds and the woman he believes is his potential daughter-in-law. When Johnny thinks of a scheme to undo the lies he’s perpetuated - stating that he and his fiancée quarreled and parted ways - Reynolds the elder looks absolutely crushed, as if she had broken up with him personally.

Perhaps the movie is a success because the older person is not scripted as a buffoon or idiot - a  common occurrence among romcoms where juveniles arrange everything themselves. He is not just an obstacle to the young man’s plans but one who catches on to the scheme and begins manipulating the situation to bring about what is ultimately best for everyone.

The film stands squarely above the rest due to Laughton’s well-established reputation as a dramatic actor.  The script helps him out as well. In addition to the early deathbed scene that instantly brings the audience on Laughton’s side emotionally,  Ms. Durbin’s romantic lead, Cummings, is not allowed to show very much affection for Ann until Gloria is out of the picture. This leaves Durbin’s character to play out the deeper, heartfelt moments with Reynolds Sr..Laughton is Ms. Durbin’s equal in screen presence, a rarity among her leading men.

However, Cummings is not an also-ran here. He’s asked to do the heavy lifting  in the comedy department and he does it well. From pretending he’s in love with a girl that he’d rather strangle [“If you hear something snap, don‘t turn around it‘ll be your neck”] to the awkwardly sensual game of tag that Ann and Johnny play, Cummings will have you in stitches throughout the film.

The movie’s supporting players carry their own weight as well, of course  - the running gag of Walter Catlett as the attending physician who himself is comically ill with mysterious symptoms; Clara Blandick as the fastidious nurse who will not leave Reynolds Sr. in peace; Leon Belasco’s hilarious solemnity as the couturier who lays out Gloria‘s prematurely-bought mourning clothes.



It Started With Eve is a charming and sophisticated comedy that will please a wide range of audience members.

Further Resources

• Bosley Crowther of The New York Times gives It Started With Eve a rave review, calling it “the perfect ‘8-to-80’ picture.” Read the review from October 3, 1941 here. 

• Charles Laughton and Susanna Foster in It Started With Eve from 

The Lux Radio Theater November 20, 1944. Listen to the radio program now: (Flash player required)
(Duration: approximately 50 minutes)

• Download the MP3 file to your iPod or media player (right-click to Save)

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The Amazing Mrs Holliday (1943)

Deanna plays a schoolteacher in China who must flee with a group of orphans after the Japanese attack her village.

In a more dramatic role that usual, Deanna Durbin is wonderful in her role as Ruth, a young missionary who rescues a group of orphans from war-torn China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

The film begins with Ruth - an orphan herself - and the children arriving in San Francisco on a lifeboat after their ship was torpedoed by the Japanese, killing the elderly captain - Commodore Tom Holliday. A sailor aboard the ship (Barry Fitzgerald) is the only other survivor of the attack, and he accompanies Deanna and the children to shore. He also leads them to help at the Holliday Mansion - and provides some comic relief along the way.

Ruth poses as Holliday's widow and attempts to shelter the children in the mansion, but has to fool all of the residents including the butler (Arthur Treacher) and the Commodore's grandson (Edmund O'Brien). Barry Fitzgerald is funny as he conjures up an impromptu tale about their marriage.

The film was nominated for an Oscar for
Best Music Score. 

As you can imagine, there are some adorable sequences featuring the children. Deanna also sings a few lullabies to them. During a fundraising event, Deanna sings "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca.

For awhile it almost felt like an autobiographical film, though this film is not based on any one missionary in particular. Though there are some humorous moments of mistaken-identity typical of a Deanna film, there are some sad flashback scenes that are reminders of the harsh realities of war, and I was reminded of the work and devotion of overseas missionaries like the one Deanna plays in the film. By the end of the film, though, I was reminded that this is a Hollywood story.

More photos from the movie can be found here at Deanna Durbin Devotees.

Read more about the child actors in the film in another review of this film from Laura at Laura's Miscellaneous Musings.

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Deanna on the big screen in Palo Alto, Califonia

The Stanford Theater in Palo Alto, California will be showing Three Smart Girls on June 22-24 at 7:30 PM. The Stanford is located on 221 University Avenue, near the campus of Stanford University. If you live within driving distance this would be a great chance to see Deanna on the big screen! The movie is part of a summer series devoted to Hollywood Musicals of the Golden age: see the full calendar here.

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1981 Photo of Durbin by Charles David

Deanna Durbin has notably shunned the spotlight since her retirement from film in the late 1940s. Since then, any interview, missive or photo of the star has been increasingly rare. Below is one I had not seen before. This photo was taken in 1981 by her husband Charles David (director of Lady On A Train). It was later sent to NYU Cinema Studies professor William Everson. 

Scrawled at the bottom of the photograph are these words:

Dear Will Everson
In gratitude for your invitations I thought I'd send you this snapshot I took of Deanna a year ago.
                       Sincerely
                       Charles David

Enjoy, film fans.

Copyrights belong to their respective owners

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Durbin's "Certain Age" Co-Star, Jackie Cooper, has Died

Actor/Director, Jackie Cooper died on May 3, 2011. He was 88. Cooper began his show business career as a child actor, gaining popularity in Hal Roach's Our Gang series. For his work in Skippy (1931) at the age of nine, Cooper holds the record as the youngest actor to garner an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Later, the teen would famously date Judy Garland and co-star with Deanna Durbin in That Certain Age (1938), with whom he also claims to have had a romantic interest.

From his autobiography, Please Don't Shoot My Dog (William Morrow and Co., 1981):

"[I] had a brief on-the-set fling with Deanna Durbin, when we did a picture together. It is an old Hollywood custom for leading man and leading lady to fall for each other. In That Certain Age I kissed her on screen,  and I gave her a few off-screen kisses, too. We had problems finding privacy on the bustling movie set and finally took to a tactic which I imagine has stood romantically inclined couples on movie sets in good stead for many years. We would duck behind the backdrops and find a few precious— although musty— moments of quiet and togetherness. Then, when the call came for the first team to report back, she would go one way and I would go the other way."

Although there are no kissing scenes in the final film, Cooper's admiration of Ms. Durbin is unmistakable in the role of  boy-next-door for the Universal Studios star.

Here are Further Resources on Jackie Cooper:

• Read our review of That Certain Age (1938)
• New York Times: Obituary for Jackie Cooper
• Hollywood Reporter: What You Don't Know About Jackie Cooper
• Watch Jackie Cooper on a "What's My Line" game show episode from January 1, 1956.

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Lady On A Train (1945): A Leslie Charteris Premise with a Lucille Ball Twist

Deanna Durbin’s film career can be divided into three overlapping eras: the adolescent years, from which comes the perky (and profitable) Durbin formula of youthful tenacity and pluck; the post-adolescence/struggle era, where the now-grownup star fights for mature material and sometimes wins; and the resignation years, when Universal’s movie veteran - weary over the struggle for challenging scripts - essentially gives in to whatever work is offered.

Lady On A Train comes near the end of the post-adolescence/struggle era. During this time, there is a definite schism within some of Ms. Durbin’s films, trying ever to balance maturity and childlike vivacity, drama and screwball. One of Ms. Durbin’s earlier works, It Started With Eve (1941), finds a near perfect balance in her relationship with Charles Laughton’s mentor-like character. Train, however, swerves wildly from one to the other.

Train follows Nicki Collins (Durbin), a San Francisco socialite, traveling by train to visit relatives in New York for the Christmas holidays, when she witnesses a murder occurring in a building while pulling into Grand Central Station. The police do not believe her, so Nicki decides to solve the murder alone. The amateur sleuth becomes involved with the victim’s family and ultimately becomes a target for murder herself.

COMEDY
It’s an interesting premise -an original story proffered by the author of the Simon Templar novels, Leslie Charteris- but the final product sometimes offers  the kind of zany misadventures that Lucy Ricardo might find herself in. Nicki retrieves the victim’s bloody slippers which leads her chaperon (Edward Everett Horton) to believe that the debutante has invited a man into her rooms. To put him off the scent, Nicki invents a supposed bromide about finding lucky shoes… and it works! So that she may take a performer's place onstage, Nicki tricks the singer into a (soon-to-be-locked) closet by tossing the lady’s flowers inside... and it works! And there’s a mystery writer (David Bruce) of whom Nicki seeks help, but manages to get them both into scrapes instead (there‘s even a running gag about his jealous fiancée).

It’s no wonder Train may seem like a sitcom at times since the two credited screenwriters- Edmund Beloin and Robert O'Brien - would later excel in writing scripts for movies and television shows featuring comedians Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. The silliness in parts of their Train script require a comic professional’s deft touch to be effective and a practiced vacuity that is at odds with Ms. Durbin’s desire to project worldliness.

David Bruce and Deanna Durbin

MATURITY
But it’s not all fun and games. Train’s cinematographer Elwood Bredell and director Charles David (later, Ms. Durbin‘s 3rd husband) give us truly frightening noir images of a would-be murderer chasing a terrified woman in a dark warehouse. Further, there is a strange, unexplored relationship between the victim’s nephew Jonathan Waring (Ralph Bellamy) and Aunt Charlotte (Elizabeth Patterson) who has been “more than an aunt.” The dark scenes and eccentricities are so far removed from the comedy, it’s as though two separate movies converged on the same reels of film.


Nicki may be child-like in the comic scenes, but she sobers up quickly for mature moments . As Pauline Kael puts it in 5001 Nights at the Movies,

“One minute she is just a little girl in pigtails lost in a great big raincoat, and the next minute she is a many-curved siren crooning ‘Give Me a Little Kiss, Will You, Huh?’ ….”

 Ms. Durbin’s maturity and sensuality are so pronounced in this film - with tight-fitting skirts and come-hither stares - one wonders whether the “Daddy,” to whom she coos over the phone, is actually her father or some guy with whom she has a secretly-arranged relationship.

By this time, film noir and crime dramas were in full swing; Basil Rathbone had already donned his famous deerstalker and embodied one of the world’s most famous sleuths; William Powell and Myrna Loy had cornered the market on sophisticated, witty American murder mystery teams; and Alfred Hitchcock had made innocuous train compartments the stuff of bad dreams. Though it has stiff competition, Train works as a murder mystery; you’re not exactly sure “whodunit” until the end. What doesn’t work are the disconnected episodes of comedy and drama in Train, which -though enjoyable in and of themselves- are like oil and water; each needs its own separate vehicle.

LADY ON A TRAIN: THE NOVEL
Novelist  Leslie Charteris, in part, provides a separate vehicle for the tragedy in the plot. After coming up with the original story for the film, Charteris fleshed out his own dramatic version of the premise which was published as novel of the same title in the same year as the film’s release (and features Ms. Durbin‘s likeness on the cover). Charteris notes with humor in the introduction of the book that he is inaugurating a new order of business in Hollywood by writing the book after the movie script is finished.

The author adds that if anybody wants to complain about there being no connection between the movie and the novel,

"...he will have to squawk about the book being changed from the picture instead of the picture being changed from the book. This for a change will leave the motion picture industry looking rather pure and angelic, while Charteris can be called the vandal and the heel.

Now while I am awaiting the presentation of a small gilded lily awarded by the Motion Picture Academy for this distinguished service I am privileged to whisper in your ear that wherever this book is different from the picture it is because I think that this is definitely an improvement.”

Though there is humor, the author’s frustration with the changes to his story is prominently displayed.

RECEPTION
Train was a popular film, which, although garnering mixed reviews with the critics, was nominated for the 1946 Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording. It lost out to The Bells of St. Mary, which scooped up numerous nominations and wins that year. Perhaps it helped that Bells - also a Christmas film - was released near the actual holiday, whereas the Durbin film -featuring a lovely rendition of “Silent Night” - was released in the sweltering dog days of August. Even in the release date you get the feeling there was plenty of compromise somewhere in this micro-managed movie.

It’s a fun film, but expect jarring mood swings.



TRIVIA

• A review of Lady On A Train from Bosley Crowther of the New York Times in September 1945

• Roy Chanslor, author of The Ballad of Cat Ballou, penned the first draft of Lady On A Train.

• Felix Jackson is the credited producer. Jackson was married to Ms. Durbin two months prior to the release of Lady On A Train.

• Early production charts list Frank Shaw as the producer, according to American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures, even though many others sources credit Felix Jackson in that position. Shaw would be credited as associate producer for other Durbin features including Can’t Help Singing (1944). 
• Songs: “Give Me A Little Kiss,” music and lyrics by Roy Turk, Jack Smith and Maceo Pinkard; “Night and Day,” music and lyrics by Cole Porter; “Silent Night, Holy Night,” music by Franz Gruber, lyrics by Joseph Mohr, English lyrics, anonymous.

• The song “Give Me a Little Kiss” [Watch it on Youtube] was still high on the Billboard Charts the following year, according to Billboard Magazine, May 18, 1946.

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