(100 min) Released 1938-02-27
Director: Norman Taurog
Stars: Deanna Durbin, Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick, Arthur Treacher
Genres: Comedy | Drama | Musical
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030395/
DD (b. 1921) is a semi-orphan (father dead, movie actress mother is publicly childless) living at a boarding school, playing younger than her age. Basically an older version of a typical Shirley Temple role.
This is a musical in the sense that DD frequently sings: while her group is bicycling, in the dorm, in class, in church, at a performance. A harmonica group gets a chance to be onstage, but when they play her favorite song, she encourages the audience to sing along, and she dominates that, of course, because we want her to.
She's got a great voice if you like opera (which I do). But she plays a chronic liar; not exactly a sociopath, since she crosses her fingers while lying, and sometimes looks distressed about how best to lie. But quick to invent a lie when the truth is inconvenient. I wouldn't want her as a friend.
Nice to see Gail Patrick as her well-meaning, heavily conflicted mother. William Frawley is mom's manager/agent who's controlling her on this issue. Herbert Marshall is mistaken for her father. Things resolve well at the end, but I wonder if DD will abandon her lying ways.
Because I don't like the main character and semi-orphans in general, this would be a 5. But DD's singing lifts it.
Universal, dir. Taurog; 6
