Nice Girl?

In 1941, Deanna Durbin was the biggest star at Universal and helped to save the sagging studio. However, this film represents a big of an awkward period. Up until this period, Deanna played young and virginal characters but by 1941, she was entering her 20s and having her play such roles was problematic to say the least! So, instead of a small change, the studio decided to try to titillate and named her next film "Nice Girl?" and they publicized that this sweet young lady would get her first screen kiss. Unfortunately, the film also is rather dull and when seen today it's not exactly a crowd pleaser.

The dull and slow-moving plot finds Mr. Oliver Dana (Robert Benchley) trying to raise his three daughters with the help of his housekeeper (Helen Broderick). The main focus is on Jane (Durbin) and whether or not she'll get the slow-witted Don (Robert Stack) or Richard Calvert (Franchot Tone). As for Don, he's much more interested in cars than sex and Richard is downright old compared to Deanna (he's 16 years her senior). It's all punctuated with Durban singing and ends with her singing a rousing patriotic tune--which varied depending on if you lived in the US or UK!

As I said...slow and dull. Not a bad film but one that never help my interest and was far from one of Durbin's best.

Deanna Durbin is a girl in a small town with a couple of sisters and solo daddy Robert Benchley. Her boyfriend is Robert Stack. He seems more interested in his souped-up car than her. When visiting anthropologist Francot Tone shows up to speak with daddy, the girls practically swoon. Miss Durbin wangles a way to spend the evening with him. Nothing happens, but when she returns to the town the next morning, tongues start to wag.

Surprisingly, it's Benchley who takes the palm for acting awards, despite a cast that also includes Helen Broderick and Walter Brennan. It's a trifle, really, in Miss Durbin's series of box-office winners for Universal, in which she sings no orchestral or classical songs -- although she does a nice version of "Swanee River", and gets two concluding songs. While the American version ends with a patriotic song about the good old USA, the British release concludes. With "There Will Always Be An England." The version that shows on Turner Classic Movies has both.

I must start my review by stating that I was born in 1935 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, wherein I have lived my entire life to the present date and will continue to live here as long as I still exist. Canada was one of Great Britain's Dominions until it became a nation forming, to the present day, part of the British Commonwealth of Nations titularly led by the British monarch, presently the Queen. Yesterday, by chance, for the very first time, I watched Nice Girl?, on my computer, it having been shown a few years ago on TCM. I knew nothing about it other than its star, Deanna Durbin, who's face and singing voice I had always adored as a kid. and that it was dated from 1941. I found the movie to be delightful from the start. The actors and their acting were/was super; humour laughingly appropriate; small town U.S.A. July 4th festivities with Deanna's songs gorgeously sung and after Robert Stack climbed out from under the army truck and she sang the patriotic Thank You America so wholesomely, I had concluded that the movie, now ending, was indubitably worth 7 stars. I was about to bestow them when suddenly, shockingly, something happened. She began to sing again! "There'll Always Be An England" a song we regularly heard on the radio, learned and sang in my pre-teen primary school years, and which I haven't heard again since the War's end. I was both dumbfounded and elated. A verification on IMDb showed me that filming of the movie took place from November 11, 1940 to January 1941. The big party took place on the July 4th weekend so it must have depicted July 1940, yet the U.S. didn't enter the war until Pearl Harbour, seventeen months later. even though her boyfriend left to join the army a day or two after that weekend. The army audience was there in full uniform to listen to her singing it!! Big unanswerable question!! But it doesn't matter. She sang it so fulsomely, with such heart. I can still remember big parts of that song today. For that song, so sung, my score of the film's points MUST rise an additional minimal two points, from 7 to nine!

What is not to like about 'Nice Girl?'? It needs hardly be among the very best of Deanna Durbin's films to still warrant at least a viewing. And it certainly does.

Robert Benchley is wonderful as the father raising three daughters with the help of his housekeeper in a small American town. Durbin plays the middle daughter, Dana, and she has her sights set on sophistication, however improbable that prospect seems. Her boyfriend, hunky, blond Robert Stack, is often filmed, bless him, in a skimpy shoulder-less undershirt whilst busying himself under the hood of the beloved car that he seems to value more than Durbin herself. When a mature man of the world, the charming Franchot Tone, shows up to do business with Dad Benchley, all three sisters fall in love with him, and Durbin decides that now is the time to take that final step towards adulthood, with ALL that it entails! "Who wants to be just useful and contented? After all, I am not a cow", Deanna Durbin complains, as she is about to flirt with disaster, preparing to be ravished by Tone in his boudoir of exotic trophies. Durbin hardly looks the Jezebel she makes a stab at, but she does look like a million bucks in her borrowed turban and black evening dress.

The dialog is snappy, often surprisingly racy for its time, the songs are classics ('The Old Folks at Home', 'Beneath the Lights of Home' etc.) and felt as well as beautifully sung by Durbin. It may not have quite the giddy strength of other Durbin movies such as 'First Love', but it is still a delightful experience.

The first part centering around family life in the Dana family is utterly charming. The three spirited sisters are feeling the pangs of youth and the opposite sex. That scene where a romantically inclined Jane (Durbin) goes riding with her car crazy boyfriend (Stack), only to have him more interested in putting a potato in his exhaust pipe than being with her is a hoot. Poor Jane. Then there's the budding Nancy (Gillis) and older sister Sylvia (Gwynne), both with their share of guy problems. Good thing dad's (Benchley) on hand to dispense fatherly wisdom. Note too how the family shares meals and talks together around a family table with no TV or cell phone in sight. In similar fashion, this first part is both amusing and insightful into norms of the day.

But once the attractively sophisticated Calvert (Tone) arrives, the focus shifts to preserving Durbin's iconic virginity. In short, her virtue wobbles while in the overnight company of bachelor Calvert. And though there are still amusing moments, much of the earlier charm diminishes. Nonetheless, Durbin shines, especially in close-ups, while getting to show off her highly musical voice. The song selection, however, is undistinguished, except for Old Folks At Home. At the same time, the approaching big war is sensed in the two patriotic compositions coming at the end.

Too bad that Durbin is largely forgotten today. But then social norms reflected in her career have changed drastically. Nonetheless, she was a highly talented performer whose close-ups continue to project a timeless magic.