Deanna Durbin: Winnipeg’s Sweetheart

This post is part of the O Canada blogathon hosted by Kristina of Speakeasy and Ruth of Silver Screenings. For more on famous Canadian movie folk, see the link at the bottom of this post.

Deanna Durbin sang on
Eddie Cantor’s radio show.

Canada born
Deanna Durbin was born on December 4, 1921 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 1923, Durbin’s parents moved to Southern California where they raised Deanna and her older sister Edith. From a young age, Durbin’s extraordinary singing voice was recognized and nurtured. Before long, Hollywood took notice and Durbin was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1935.

That other girl singer
At M-G-M, there was another girl singer singed to a movie contract named Judy Garland. The studio starred Durbin and Garland in a short film, Every Sunday (1936). The film was a showcase for the vocal talents of both young women. Garland’s contemporary “swing” style of vocalization contrasted with Durbin’s classical operatic voice. After the film’s release, the studio dropped Durbin from their star roster, but kept Garland. There are a lot of stories surrounding the reason Durbin’s contract was not renewed, but it just appears to have been more of an oversight than the studio preferring Garland.

M-G-M’s loss was Universal’s gain

A mature glam shot from
the 1940s.

When M-G-M didn’t renew Durbin’s contract, she was signed immediately by Universal Studios. Producer Joe Pasternak cast her in her first feature film, Three Smart Girls (1936). It was a box office bonanza and is credited with helping to save the struggling studio from bankruptcy. The film was so popular that it made Durbin an overnight sensation. She, along with Mickey Rooney, received a juvenile Oscar for their film work in 1938.

International superstar
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Durbin was one of the biggest and most beloved movies stars in the entire world. She was one of Anne Frank’s favorites; Frank had a picture of Durbin on her bedroom wall, in the home where the Frank family hid during World War II. When Durbin received her first screen kiss in 1939’s First Love, from Robert Stack, the press dubbed it “the kiss heard around the world.”

One of  Durbin’s most enduring films

Highest paid woman in the world
By the time Durbin celebrated her 21rst birthday, she was the highest paid woman in the United States and the highest-paid female movie star in the world. One of the best movies she made during this period was the romantic comedy It Started With Eve (1941), costarring Charles Laughton and Robert Cummings. As Durbin matured, she wanted to tackle more serious roles. She starred in the dark murder-mystery Christmas Holiday (1944), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham. The dark-themed movie paired her with screen newcomer, Gene Kelly. With the innocuous title, Durbin and Kelly fans were probably expecting a musical rather than a noirish, melodrama. To many, it proved Durbin could act and if given the proper vehicle, she might have transitioned to more challenging adult roles. Even though Christmas Holiday was a box office success, Durbin’s fans preferred her in lighter fare. Durbin followed up Christmas Holiday with Can’t Stop Singing, her one and only Technicolor film. The musical, featuring a score by Jerome Kern with lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, was a box office smash. It broke all records at New York’s Loew’s Criterion Theatre between December 1944 through January 1945.

Durbin puts her hands and feet in cement
at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre

Little Miss Fixit no more
During the rest of the 1940s, Durbin continued to star in successful light romantic comedies. Even though the quality of her films wasn’t always the best, she was still a big box office draw and her fan club was the largest in the world. Growing tired of the poor scripts Universal was giving her, Durbin later declared, “I couldn’t go on forever being Little Miss Fixit who burst into song.” By 1949, Durbin turned her back on Hollywood and decided to retire at the ripe old age of 28. She married for a third time to producer-director Charles David and moved to France where she lived a very private life as wife and mother.

Gene Kelly and Durbin in
Christmas Holiday

Leave me alone!
Durbin turned down numerous offers to star in films at other studios. Bing Crosby wanted her to costar with him in Top o’ the Morning and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (both 1949). Pasternak, now at M-G-M, tried to lure Durbin to his new studio. Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II wanted Durbin to star in the Broadway production of Oklahoma! Durbin was Alan Jay Lerner’s first choice to play Eliza Doolittle in the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady. For years the offers would come and Durbin would turn them down. She shunned the press for decades. She reluctantly agreed to an interview in 1983.

My Deanna Durbin Coffee Mug

Lasting legacy
In spite of Durbin’s disillusionment with Hollywood, she left a body of work that documents her extraordinary vocal range. Combined with her natural acting abilities, Durbin endeared herself to a generation of moviegoers. Today, Durbin’s films might seem corny and formulaic, but even in her most pedestrian vehicles, her warmth and charm shine through. Deanna Durbin may have turned her back on Hollywood and all that came with screen stardom, but her fans never turned their backs on the girl with the golden voice.


Some Durbin essentials:

Three Smart Girls (1936)
One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937
Mad About Music (1938)
That Certain Age (1938)
Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939)
First Love (1939)
It Started With Eve (1941)
Can’t Help Singing (1944)

See and hear Deanna sing “I Love To Whistle” from Mad About Music

Portions of this blogpost appeared in a post dated December 4, 2010, Ms. Durbin’s 89th birthday.

Can’t get enough of Canadian movie folk? Click here for more interesting posts in the O Canada blogathon!

This Island Earth: 1950s Science Fiction Classic

During the 1950s, a new genre emerged in Hollywood: the science fiction film. There were science fiction films before the 1950s, but after World War II, they really flourished. Many of these films were low-budget second features shot in black and white with sub-par special effects. But in 1955, Universal International Pictures produced a big budget science fiction epic in three-strip Technicolor.

The movie  poster tells the story.

What’s an Interocitor?
This Island Earth, based on the novel by Raymond F. Jones, is the story of a dying planet, Metaluna and its inhabitants. In an attempt to save their race, the Metalunans have decided to settle on Earth. To facilitate their plan, they enlist the help of the top scientific minds our planet has to offer. They test these scientists with a task: assemble an interocitor, a complex multi-purpose communications device. One such scientist, Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason), along with his assistant, successfully assemble the interocitor and are immediately congratulated (via the device) by Exeter (Jeff Morrow) an alien leader from Metaluna. Now thoroughly intrigued Cal agrees to fly to a secret location to participate in Exeter’s “research project.”

Scientific Retreat
The secret location turns out to be an estate in Georgia where Exeter has assembled scientists from around to world. One of the scientists is Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue), someone Cal is sure he’s met before. Ruth says Cal has mistaken her for someone else, which just adds to the mystery. Another scientist at the compound is Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson*). The trio become fast friends, especially when they begin to suspect that the research may have a sinister edge and not the peaceful purpose Exeter has led them to believe. It’s at this moment that Ruth admits to Cal that she didn't acknowledge knowing him out of fear.

Cal, Ruth, and Exeter on their way to Metaluna

Death of a Planet
Exeter and his main assistant Brack both have distinctively large foreheads, white hair, and tan complexions. These odd features give our trio pause as they plan an escape before they are put under the “sun lamp,” a thought control device used by the aliens. Ruth, Steve, and Cal have avoided the thought transformer for reasons unknown to them. As the scientists make their escape, Brack sets out to kill them. Steve sacrifices himself for Cal and Ruth, who escape the compound in a small plane. After taking off, Cal and Ruth’s plane is captured by a flying saucer captained by Exeter. The scientists journey with the aliens to Metaluna, which is under continuous attack by the evil Zagons. Cal and Ruth realize the desperate situation the Metalunans face; their planet is dying.

Cal and Ruth prepare for the return trip to Earth

Sole Survivor
Upon their arrival, Exeter introduces Cal and Ruth to the leader of the Metalunans, known as the Monitor. He orders Exeter to put the scientists under the influence of the thought transformer. Exeter finds that he cannot comply with the Monitor’s order. He defies his leader and takes Cal and Ruth back to Earth. As they leave the atmosphere of Metaluna, they witness its destruction. Exeter is his planet’s sole survivor.

Home Sweet Home
Exeter returns Cal and Ruth safely to Earth, but refuses the earthlings’ invitation to remain with them. With his spaceship running low on fuel, Exeter crashes it into the ocean where it is destroyed and with it any memory of the advanced civilization of which he was a member.

Joseph Newman directed Jeanne Crain and Michael Rennie in Dangerous Crossing.

Impressive Production
This Island Earth directed by Joseph Newman (Dangerous Crossing 1953), received almost overwhelmingly good reviews when released. The special effects, which were dazzling to audiences and critics in 1955, received the most acclaim. H. H. T. writing for The New York Times said the “panoramic vista of the doomed planet ‘Metaluna,’ should leave anyone bug-eyed.” He also noted the “reasonable acting and plucky, even literate, writing.” The film’s special effects reportedly were in production for over two years. For the film’s stars and director, all of whom are not and never were household names, This Island Earth is a high-water mark.

This Island Earth influenced Forbidden Planet released in 1956.

Enduring Influence
An enjoyable and groundbreaking movie, This Island Earth has a strong narrative flow that sets it apart from the other science fiction films made during the 1950s. The sets, including the interior of the space ship influenced another science fiction classic movie released the following year, Forbidden Planet, as well as TV shows like Lost in Space and Star Trek.


Product of the 1950s
The film isn’t perfect and it did resort to some pretty tried and true B-movie cliches. For example, as Cal and Ruth are returning to Earth with Exeter, a stowaway alien mutant monster (a giant bug) infatuated with Ruth, chases her around the ship before being killed. And of course, Ruth is wearing a skin-tight spacesuit! Considering the bulk of the movie isn’t this blatantly exploitative, we’ll let it pass. After all it was the 1950s, right?

If you’re a science fiction fan, you owe it to yourself to give this film a try. You’ll see that many of the genre’s conventions, popular today, emerged with This Island Earth.


*Trivia: Russell Johnson who plays Steve Carlson went on to greater fame playing another scientist, Roy Hinkley, otherwise known as "The Professor" on TV's Gilligan's Island.

Chicago and Movie History

Gloria Swanson, Charlie Chaplin and Marion Davies

Hollywood in the Midwest?

Before anyone heard of a place called Hollywood, Chicago played an important role in the history of film in America.

Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson Slept (and worked) Here

Before the sound era, Chicago housed Midwest corporate offices for Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal, and the Samuel Goldwyn studios. Most of the offices were in Chicago's South Loop along Wabash Ave. Other film offices were located one block east on Michigan Ave. During this period, major silent movie productions starring screen legends Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson were made in Chicago.

Distribution Hub

Some evidence of this history still exists. The Film Exchange Lofts at 1307 S. Wabash Ave. was once owned by the Warner Bros. studio. They had corporate offices at that location, but its most important use was for storing film for distribution. With Chicago's location and access to train travel, it was the ideal distribution point for Chicago and Illinois theatres.

Ruins From Past Glories

The Universal International logo
can be seen at 1234 S. Michigan Ave.*

The famous terra cotta archway entrance to the Jesse Lasky Famous-Players (a forerunner of Paramount) building on Wabash near 13th Street was rescued from destruction by Columbia College. It now stands in their Media Production Center at 1600 S. State St.

*Ming Hin South Loop removed the Universal International logo when they opened at 1234 S. Michigan Ave. Why they felt this was necessary no one knows.