Alan Jay Lerner came to France to play her his unfinished score of My Fair Lady, hoping she'd come out of retirement to play Eliza on Broadway; she turned down Kiss Me, Kate and other properties; she would have been wonderful in Showboat...as Anna in the King and I...but all Deanna Durbin wanted was to be a nobody and raise her children out of the spotlight.
At least her youth, voice and acting ability have been preserved, and in "Can't Help Singing," she's preserved in color.
Durbin plays Caroline, a young woman who runs away from home to join the man she loves (David Bruce) in Ft. Badger. Joining a wagon train, she meets and falls for Lawlor (Robert Paige), a gambler. Meanwhile, her father (Ray Collins) is after her, and two con artists posing as Russians (Leonid Kinskey and Akim Tamiroff) keep appropriating her trunk.
If the plot is silly and the Jerome Kern score is nice but not exceptional. However, the score is beautifully sung by Durbin and Robert Paige amidst glorious Utah scenery. Durbin's rich voice never sounded better, and she looks stunning.
I keep reading on this site that Deanna didn't like her last films, but this wasn't one of them. In the only interview she's given since her retirement in 1948, to Richard Shipman in 1983, she said her four last films were awful and Universal wasn't trying very hard with the scripts assigned to her. This was always the problem with Universal; though she saved the studio from bankruptcy, Universal didn't seek out the best properties for her, and they never seemed to want to spend a lot of money.
For "Can't Help Singing," though, no expense was spared, and it shows.
Forget the plot -- this is a feast for the eye and ear. Sixty-four years after her retirement (she turns 91 in December 2012) Deanna Durbin is still delighting audiences with her singing and acting.
At least her youth, voice and acting ability have been preserved, and in "Can't Help Singing," she's preserved in color.
Durbin plays Caroline, a young woman who runs away from home to join the man she loves (David Bruce) in Ft. Badger. Joining a wagon train, she meets and falls for Lawlor (Robert Paige), a gambler. Meanwhile, her father (Ray Collins) is after her, and two con artists posing as Russians (Leonid Kinskey and Akim Tamiroff) keep appropriating her trunk.
If the plot is silly and the Jerome Kern score is nice but not exceptional. However, the score is beautifully sung by Durbin and Robert Paige amidst glorious Utah scenery. Durbin's rich voice never sounded better, and she looks stunning.
I keep reading on this site that Deanna didn't like her last films, but this wasn't one of them. In the only interview she's given since her retirement in 1948, to Richard Shipman in 1983, she said her four last films were awful and Universal wasn't trying very hard with the scripts assigned to her. This was always the problem with Universal; though she saved the studio from bankruptcy, Universal didn't seek out the best properties for her, and they never seemed to want to spend a lot of money.
For "Can't Help Singing," though, no expense was spared, and it shows.
Forget the plot -- this is a feast for the eye and ear. Sixty-four years after her retirement (she turns 91 in December 2012) Deanna Durbin is still delighting audiences with her singing and acting.