His Butler's Sister

I find it amusing that this musical's "lack of realism" was so appalling to several of the viewers. Thinking of the great musicals - "Show Boat", "Oklahoma", "South Pacific", the list is enormous - and criticizing their plots for verisimilitude or realism is rather like looking for the meaning of life in a Warner Brothers cartoon! It simply isn't important in the realm of the musical. When I think of some major musicals adapted for screen and the Sidneys and Walters with their heavy-handed ways directing them, Frank Borzage is so very much better. True, I'm not familiar with the director's lighter side but he handled things quite flowingly. I would have to agree that the script sounds like the work of a committee, but the songs were Durbin at her best. No, she didn't have the magnetism to light up the screen in any way but her voice was excellently suited for the material heard here.

Curtis Stotlar