With high unemployment, long bread lines, and home foreclosures rampant outside the theaters, Depression-era teens sought light escapist entertainment on date nights. A sequel to 1936's "Three Smart Girls," "Three Smart Girls Grow Up" is about as light and undemanding a piece of fluff that audiences could ask for. The wealthy Craig family includes three marriageable sisters, Penny, Joan, and Kay. The film begins with Joan's engagement to a handsome blonde young man named Richard. All seems bliss, but the meddlesome Penny inadvertently discovers that Kay has been secretly in love with Richard all along and is distraught by her sister's upcoming wedding. Thus, instigated by the family butler, Penny becomes matchmaker, determined to find a beau for Kay. Unfortunately, the man that Penny finds, Harry, immediately becomes smitten with the already engaged Joan. Got that? Ah, the pain and agony of young love.
The rich high-society Craigs reside in a cavernous mansion with a mammoth foyer, a ballroom, and a sweeping grand staircase. However, despite the gargantuan abode, the three nearly mature young ladies must share a room, where secrets become common knowledge. A star vehicle for Universal's gold mine, Deanna Durbin, the film includes several opportunities for the young singer to musically shine. Dramatically, the young star plays the manipulative Penny with confidence, although viewers may want to give her a good smack and send her to her room without dinner well before the movie ends.
The supporting cast is competent, but, with the exception of Charles Winniger as Penny's addled father, none are memorable. Penny's two pretty sisters do not register, and the two young suitors, played by William Lundigan and Robert Cummings, are handsome enough to be convincing heartthrobs, but their roles are undemanding. The thin storyline is predictable from the first scene and generally plays out amusingly. However, occasional annoying patches surface as Penny becomes tiresome by intruding into the lives of her sisters and their suitors. "Three Smart Girls Grow Up" is not on a par with the best Deanna Durbin vehicles, but worthy entertainment nevertheless for fans of her voice and upbeat demeanor.
