I see Anita Louise will be on today in a movie with Gail Patrick ( one of my favorite "bridesmaids" ) in "RENO."
Hope all's well.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
It's uncanny that you mention this Mike. I've been thinking for the last three or four months that I must revisit this film and "It Started with Eve", my two favorite Durbin films. Haven gotten around to watching them yet...MikeBSG wrote:Today I watched "First Love" (1939) directed by Henry Koster and starring Deanna Durbin.
This was maybe the third Deanna Durbin movie I've seen, but I think it is my favorite. It moved like greased lightning, and while I wasn't that taken with Durbin herself, I loved how the movie intertwined the plots of "My Man Godfrey" and "Cinderella." At several points in the film I just laughed or cheered (particularly when the snooty cousin got frustrated.) Maybe it is just me, but it seemed to me that the movie allowed for a double perspective in that you could enjoy the sentiment and then laugh at it at the same time. Such as at the end of the film when Durbin is singing this tragic aria, and the camera cuts to a group of old maids weeping their eyes out. We go from being moved by Durbin's music, to laughing at ourselves for reacting like the old maids do, to suddenly feeling joy when Robert Stack walks into the room and Durbin rushes into his arms.
Given how well I thought everything worked together, it was a surprise to read that "First Love" was apparently quite an ordeal to make. Production started without a script and things fell behind schedule almost at once. However, that seems par for the course for Universal in 1939. Yet "Son of Frankenstein," "You Can't Cheat and Honest Man," "First Love," and "Destry Rides Again" did not end up as catastrophes but as films that remain enjoyable to the present day.
[u][color=#404080]THE INGENUE[/color][/u] wrote:...The Bridesmaid thread Wendy started looks so good, I almost don't want to read it and "use it up"--been sort of saving it. But I saw you put dibs on Gail Patrick and Melvyn Douglas. I love your post already. Is it written yet?...Do you know the story of how Jack Oakie and Mitchell Leisen contrived to keep her on at studio when the bosses were going to let her go? ( Drop a hat and I'll tell it. )