ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL

[cclowell38]

Did anyone else catch this movie last night on TCM? I thoiught it was terrific! I discovered Deanna Durbin fairly recently but I couldn't believe how good she was in it, especially considering she'd had almost no prior performing experience, and WHAT A VOICE!

 

Robert Osborne said in his introduction that the film "created a sensation" when it was first released, coming on the heels on Deanna's first film THREE SMART GIRLS, and helped to turn Universal from a minor studio into a major one. He also mentioned that Deanna received a special Academy Award in 1939, acknowledging her talent as a Juvenile Performer. By my reckoning, she would have received this Oscar after only two years onscreen and four films. Most impressive!

 

I also really enjoyed Henry Koster's direction on this film, which seems much more imaginative and stylish than his later work in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Makes me wonder what happened? The camera was very mobile and the actions and movements of the characters were all underscored with great music. A real gem!

 

Anyone else have any thoughts on this movie?

[FredCDobbs]

I liked this film too. She had a great voice. I often wondered whatever happened to her, then I saw a film she made as a lady detective in 1945, ?Lady on a Train?. She grew up and did dramatic roles. She was great in them too.

[path40a]

I watched it too and enjoyed it very much. She certainly was a unique talent. There are a lot of Deanna Durbin fans on these boards and a whole thread dedicated to her buried somewhere in this folder too. The discussion centered on how her talents could have been better used (ala Judy Garland), but weren't, and various speculations as to the reasons.

 

I also enjoyed Three Smart Girls and, ironically, just received First Love from Netflix today!

[FredCDobbs]

I was thinking the same thing regarding Judy Garland. Deanna Durbin actually got cuter as she grew older, while Judy Garland got more homely looking. I wonder if Durbin?s voice might have changed as she got older? I don?t think she sings at all in ?Lady on a Train.?

[path40a]

Here's a link to the earlier thread I'd mentioned in my previous post; it's more than a year old ("Salvaging Deanna Durbin's career"):

 

http://forums.turnerclassicmovies.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=58651&start=75#5591324

[d120421]

I actually thought that for most of their concurrent screen careers, Universal exhibited greater confidence in Deanna than MGM did in Judy. Because of the "legendary dimensions given her legacy in the decades since her tragic relatively early death, not to mention the regular availability and dissemination of her MGM films and screen image during the same period, I think many people consider Judy to have been a much bigger star at MGM than she actually was for most of her tenure with the studio.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying that Judy WASN'T a big star, she certainly was, but I've seen no evidence that she was an iconic figure such as Deanna Durbin became quite quickly over at Universal. For example, while Durbin reached the top more or less with her first film, Garland didn't begin to obtain a similar eminence at MGM until 1942's FOR ME AND MY GAL, her fourteenth(?) feature film appearance and her first "adult" role. Prior to this, Judy had almost always appeared in either leading roles in "B" productions (e.g., EVERYBODY SING, LISTEN DARLING) or in prominent support to stars like Mickey Rooney and Lana Turner. Although THE WIZARD OF OZ's elaborate Technicolored production can be considered an "exception" to this rule, it's worth noting that OZ was not marketed as a Garland "star vehicle" as THREE SMART GIRLS and her subsequent Universal productions were for Durbin.

 

Anyway, here's a nice write up on ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL by Anthony Slide. I agree that it's a delightful film and Deanna was a uniquely charismatic, talented and appealing performer, even at this early stage of her career. It's really remarkable how well she does with that rapid-fire "screwball comedy" dialogue. Winston Churchill was right: she was "a remarkable talent!"

 

ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL

BY ANTHONY SLIDE

 

The Deanna Durbin screen phenomenon is not likely to be

repeated. Within a year or two of this Canadian teenager's

screen debut she had completely eclipsed the other major child

stars of the 1930's to become one of the biggest box office stars

of the decade. Although it is not strictly true that she was

single-handedly responsible for saving Universal Pictures from

bankruptcy, her films did account for seventeen percent of the

studio's entire revenue during the late 1930's.

 

Durbin brought to the screen a genuine warmth and charm

which is unsurpassed; she made the awkward age look

graceful. Credit for her success must be shared equally by her

producer Joe Pasternak and her director Henry Koster, who

understood her simple charm and never tried to overexploit it.

There can be no question that her later films-such as His

Butler's Sister (1944), Can't Help Singing (1945) and Something

in the Wind (1947)-are far better than most would have one

believe, but it is the films which she made for Pasternak and

Koster-Three Smart Girls (1936), 100 Men and a Girl, First Love

(1939), Three Smart Girls (1939), and Spring Parade

(1940)-which, quite rightly, are remembered with particular

fondness. Only Sonja Henie, who began her screen career

concurrently with Durbin, had the same kind of naturalness

which could transcend acting ability.

 

100 Men and a Girl was Deanna Durbin's third film appearance.

In less than a year she had been featured in M-G-M's short Every

Sunday, costarring Judy Garland, and had starred in her first

Universal feature, Three Smart Girls. 100 Men and a Girl was

one of only two "A" features produced by Universal in 1937. The

nature of the company's financial problems can be gleaned from

an industry joke of the period which claimed that the film was

supposed to be called 120 Men and a Girl, but Univesal could

not raise the money to pay for twenty more extras. The one

hundred men of the title are members of an orchestra of

unemployed musicians whom Patricia Cardwell (Deanna

Durbin) has persuaded her father (Adolphe Menjou) to organize.

In a performance which has elements of both cuteness and

bratishness, Patricia sets out to find a sponsor for her orchestra.

She apparently finds one in the wealthy and philanthropic Mrs.

John G. Frost, beautifully played with fine comic breeziness by

former stage and silent screen star Alice Brady, who has Patricia

sing for her friends at a party which the young girl has "crashed."

 

Mrs. Frost leaves for Europe, and her husband John G. Frost

(Eugene Pallette) must cope with this problem child with a very

large problem. He tells Patricia that she must find a conductor of

the stature of Leopold Stokowski if she wants him to sponsor the

orchestra on his radio program, and the girl, after many rebuffs,

actually persuades Stokowski to lead the orchestra. In a final

happy moment, Patricia is introduced by Stokowski to the

concert-hall audience as "the little girl who made all this

possible," and is persuaded to sing the drinking song from

Verdi's La Traviata. In one of those marvelous moments that

grace the film, during the middle of the aria, Patricia flashes an

expression of happiness to her father, who responds in like

fashion. In a sense, Stokowski's introduction goes beyond the

film plot to credit Deanna Durbin as the girl who made a

significant film possible and helped a studio to continue in

operation.

 

Henry Koster's direction is in the best Continental European

tradition, and has close affinities to Ernst Lubitsch's style. From

the moment Stokowski raises his hand to conduct the orchestra,

and the camera glides through the audience picking out all the

expressions on the faces of the listeners, one realizes that this

is a very special motion picture. The cinematography is

dazzling;one example is when the camera moves on a crane

from a shot of the unemployed musicians in the lobby of

Stokowski's house as they begin to play Lizst's Second

Hungarian Rhapsody, up the stairs to an unsmiling maestro on

the upper level. As the music plays and Patricia urges

Stokowski to overcome his prejudices and accept the music, he

slowly begins to move his hands in time to the music. As Liszt's

music swells, Stokowski's hands take over and he begins to

conduct. The camera ultimately comes to rest on the

concentration on his face. Music, acting, cinematography editing

and direction all work in perfect unison.

 

Another wonderful moment occurs when Patricia sneaks into a

rehearsal by Stokowski and his orchestra. As the orchestra

plays the introduction to the Third act of Wagner's Lohengrin,

and as the stage doorman tries to find her, the camera follows

her progress around the theater by the feather on top of her hat,

as it bobs up and down from one row of seats to the next. When

Stokowski asks the orchestra to rehearse Mozart's Allelujah,

Patricia begins to sing, not from one stationary position, but

moving from one part of the theater to another, from the boxes to

the balcony. After every break in the singing, she has moved to

another section of the theater.

 

This use of music to move along the plot is almost unique to 100

Men and a Girl. As one critic at the time wrote, it showed that, in

the hands of the right director, Mozart could be as exciting as a

murder hunt. In 100 Men and a Girl, Deanna Durbin brought

serious music to a common level; for probably the first time,

many filmgoers heard such great works as Tchaikowsky's Fifth

Symphony and the overture to Herod by Zampa. Aside from

classical music, 100 Men and a Girl featured two popular songs,

"A Heart That's Free" (by Alfred G. Robyn and Thomas T. Railey)

and the delightful "It's Raining Sunbeams" (by Frederick

Hollander and Sam Coslow), which Patricia sings to cheer up

her father afer he has been unsuccessful in finding a job.

 

Credit should also go to the superb character actors in the film,

particularly Mischa Auer as the out-of-work piccolo player

Michael; Billy Gilbert as the put-upon owner of a garage where

the unemployed musicians rehearse and whose cries of "I want

my money" are drowned out by the music; and particularly Frank

Jenks as the taxi driver who takes Patricia all over town as she

desperately searches for a sponsor. Others worthy of note are

Jameson Thomas, a former leading man in British silent films,

who plays Stokowski's manager and Jed Prouty, a fellow

clubmember friend of Eugene Pallette who enjoys playing

practical jokes. The best character acting, however, comes from

the nameless players who make up the orchestra of the

unemployed; their expressive faces indicate better than any

words the sorrow of their unemployment and the joy they derive

from their music.

 

Shortly before his death, Leopold Stokowski was asked his

opinion of Deanna Durbin. He described her as "a wonderful

singer with a good voice and a beautiful actress." 100 Men and

a Girl demonstrates Durbin's talent at its' best, and proves that

she was more than just another child star in the Shirley Temple

or Judy Garland mold. She retired in 1948, and now lives in

quiet seclusion in France with her third husband, Charles David,

who had directed her in Lady on a Train in 1945. Durbin's films

are seldom revived today; the happiness and unsophisticated

charm which she displayed on screen have never been fully

appreciated or equalled.

[cclowell38]

Thanks for the response, Markus! (and Everyone else!)

 

I really like the Slide article/analysis, although personally I think Deanna was a much better actress than Sonja Henie. I do like Sonja, but I don't think she was much of an actress, though she was cute and undoubtedly a great skater.

 

Deanna undoubtedly had great charm, but she showed genuine comedic and dramatic ability in this film, in my opinion. She's great at delivering that rapid-fire dialogue and she's already naturally somewhat subdued and restrained in the more dramatic and downcast scenes. She could cry effectivey and naturally, and was very good at expressing hurt and disappointment She made this contemporary urban fairy tale very involving and, in a few spots, touching, and that's no mean feat!

[FredCDobbs]

I like in the Nancy Drew series with Bonita Granville.

[cclowell38]

I like the NANCY DREW series, too. And I really like Bonita Granville. She's so much better as the vicious brat in THESE THREE than Karen Balkin is in the 1960s remake, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR.

 

Incidentally, Bonita's "vassal" in that film, Marcia Mae Jones, said that Deanna Durbin was her favorite co-star of all the child stars she worked with. I thought Jones gave a terrific performance in THESE THREE too, even if neither she nor Bonita could sing as well as Deanna. lol!

[brian34]

Great movie, very well done. I'd never heard of it before and really enjoyed it.

A TCM premiere too.

[cclowell38]

I agree. Now that they've shown this one, I hope they'll be able to show more of Deanna Durbin's movies in the near future. I believe this one is scheduled to be re-broadcast in March.

[MrBoynton]

> I wonder if Durbin?s voice might have changed as she got older? I don?t

> think she sings at all in ?Lady on a Train.?

 

Deanna sings three songs in Lady on a Train -- "Night and Day," "Give Me a Little Kiss," and "Silent Night".

[cclowell38]

Yes, and though I haven't seen them all yet, i understand she sang in every one of the 21 feature films she made for Universal.

[FredCDobbs]

Thanks, I forgot about her singing in "Lady on a Train."

 

TCM has run Deanna Durbin festivals about every 4 or 5 years, showing a few of her films during each one.

[d120421]

ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL received terrific reviews. THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER began its' review with the line: "We'd like to go on record with a prophecy. We'll tab 100 MEN AND A GIRL as one of the best pictures of the year..."

 

In the NEW STATESMAN, critic Pat Galaway raved: "Useless to pretend that I am tough enough to resist the blandishments of Miss Deanna Durbin. The candid eyes, the parted lips, the electric energy; the astonishing voice; if they bowl over 50 million or so, surely a critic may be pardoned for wobbling a little on his cynical professional base. For this is pure fairytale, but it comes off."

 

The LONDON EVENING NEWS noted: "Hard-boiled critics sat at the premiere with tears of joy running down their cheeks." And this observation seemed to be confirmed by Campbell Dixon's review in the LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH: "I have seen one of the most brilliant pictures of the year. It has practically everything-good music, natural, unforced comedy, an emotional quality that made strong men weak at the private view--and one of the most endearing stars in the world. Deanna Durbin is a miracle. At 15 she has a delightful voice and can hold her own with some of the finest actors on the screen."

 

And critic Jympson Harman gushed: "It seems to be just one of those delightful accidents of team work that come along perhaps a dozen times a year; a story that comes to life. Ten times more moving than a profesed tear-jerker like STELLA DALLAS. At an age when most English girls are graduating from the Giggling-Grotesque to the Smiling-Vacuous this young Canadian combines the unforced vivacity of a child with ease and certainty of touch you only expect in a vetern actress."

 

Incidentally, in his introduction, Robert Osborne incorrectly stated that Deanna was 16 when she made ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL. Actually having been born in December, 1921, she was only 15 when the film was produced. As David Shipman commented later:

 

"Of the many films in which Deanna Durbin appeared, the one most fondly remembered is ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL. That a fifteen year-old child should have had such a clarity in singing and masterly musicianship is remarkable, but combined with a similar instinct for acting is nothing short of miraculous."

[cclowell38]

Thanks for the excerpts from the reviews, Markus! I'm not surprised that the film garnered such high praise, and even less so that everyone raved about Deanna. She was somethin' else!

[d120421]

You're welcome, CC:

 

Incidentally, among the accolades that Deanna received for her performance in 100 MEN AND A GIRL was a nomination as "Best Actress" by the New York Drama Critic's Circle, a tremendous feat for a young girl in only her second film appearance, at least in my opinion. With such tremendous popularity and criticical approbation, it's easy to see why other studios began signing and developing other talented adolescent performers almost immediately. It's strange to think that before Deanna came along, Hollywood didn't see any star-making possibilities in adolescent girls, even those with remarkable vocal gifts like Deanna and Judy Garland.

[cclowell38]

Markus,

 

I heard that during production of 100 MEN AND A GIRL, Greta Garbo arranged to visit Deanna on the set to tell her how much she admired her singing. Have you ever heard anything about that?

[GeorgeOBrien]

Did anyone notice Universal's reprising Alice Brady and Eugene Pallette as a screwball comedy married couple in what was, for all intents and purposes, their "My Man Godfrey" roles? That film had been a great hit the year before and perhaps the studio thought they might draw in more people to a film starring a girl whose box office appeal was as yet unknown.

[d120421]

Hi CC:

 

Yes, I've read that Garbo used her star power to arrange to meet with Deanna on the closed set of 100 MEN AND A GIRL to tell her how much she admired her singing. As a result of her meeting with Deanna, Garbo also met Leopold Stokowski and began an affair with him

 

Assuming it's true (and I've seen no reason to doubt that it is), that must be quite a feather in Deanna's cap. Imagine being able to tell your grandchildren that Greta Garbo sought you out!

 

During production of the film, Deanna also received a plaque from RADIO GUIDE magazine (at least I think that was the magazine) for having been voted "Favorite Newcomer of the Year" by listeners. According to what I read, she was the top vote getter with a remarkable 5,000,000 votes.

[d120421]

> Did anyone notice Universal's reprising Alice Brady

> and Eugene Pallette as a screwball comedy married

> couple in what was, for all intents and purposes,

> their "My Man Godfrey" roles? That film had been a

> great hit the year before and perhaps the studio

> thought they might draw in more people to a film

> starring a girl whose box office appeal was as yet

> unknown.

 

Hi George:

 

I did notice the similarities between the roles Brady and Pallette play in this film and their roles in MY MAN GODFREY, though I'm not sure they were cast as insurance against Deanna's potential lack of box office appeal.

 

it's true that Deanna had only made one feature film before 100 Men and a Girl, but she created such a sensation in Three Smart Girls that even before it went into wide release in January 1937, many prominent periodicals had predicted superstardom for her, as the following December, 1936, commentary from The New York Times demonstrates:

 

The success of two new youngsters in recent films promises to lift

the ban from half-grown girls, and possibly start a cycle of pictures

involving singing ingenues. Girls in their early and mid teens have

never interested producers, but since Judy Garland attracted attention

in PIGSKIN PARADE, and the industry became aware of Deanna Durbin in

Universal's THREE SMART GIRLS, scouting activity has been noted.

 

Young Miss Durbin's success has been the more pronounced. Charles R.

Rogers, Universal's head, regards her as one of the important

discoveries of several seasons and is making elaborate plans for her

future. There is talk of reviving "The Phantom of the Opera" in which

she will be starred and Hans Kraly has been commissioned to write an

untitled original for her.

 

Following Hollywood custom, most of those connected with a successful

film are being advanced to high places. With "Three Smart Girls" Miss

Durbin has been skyrocketed to stardom, and Adele Commandini who wrote

the original, Joseph Pasternak, who produced it, and Henry Koster who

directed the picture are accorded the title of geniuses of the month....

 

Miss Durbin, Miss Commandini's script, Pasternak and Koster were

thrown together to make a B picture. Pasternak saw the possibilities

in the yarn and while he was pleading for an enlarged budget, Joseph

I. Breen of the Hays office, to whom the scenario had been sent for

approval, called Rogers and complimented him on it. As a result,

without fanfare or announcement, the picture was put on the A list,

money was spent on it and now everyone connected with the project is

in great demand."

 

That's not to say that Universal wasn't doing everything it could to give Deanna an appropriate follow-up to her debut vehicle. Both Alice Brady and Mischa Auer, for instance, had appeared in Three Smart Girls with her, as well as in My Man Godfrey, so audiences seeing their names in the cast list might have expected that 100 Men and a Girl had some of the same virtues as Three Smart Girls as these films, but Deanna was so prominently featured in the "Coming Attractions" trailers and other advertising of her films (for instance, the "Coming Attractions" trailer for Three Smart Girls consisted entirely of Deanna's face imposed over an art deco background with raves quoted from Eddie Cantor) that I suspect Universal's putting Brady, Pallette, Auer and the other fine character actors in the film was simply an indication of the faith they had in her superstar potential.

 

Of course, Brady, Auer, Pallette, et.al. were among the finest character actors in films at the time, so I don't think their names on a marquee or cast list ever hurt any star.

 

Interestingly, in Deanna's 1939 film, First Love, a contemporary variation on "Cinderella," the comparisions to My Man Godfrey, with Pallette, who plays Deanna's uncle, cast as the head of a crazy rich family he understandably loathes, although this time his somewhat flighty, astrology-obsessed wife is played by Leatrice Joy instead of Alice Brady. As one commentator noted, it was as if Universal mated elements of the classic fairy tale with some of its' own traditional motifs, particularly those in My Man Godfrey.

 

Pallette's role in First Love isn't nearly as large as his role in My Man Godfrey, but the scene where he finally gets fed up with his selfish family and lashes out at them is one of the best (and funniest) performances ever given by this classic and unique charactrer actor.

[cagney69]

This was one of those movies I decided I would start to watch but figured I would lose interest in. It never happened. Deanna is a whirling dervish. The scene near the end is just incredible. This movie is definitely not for just Deanna Durbin fans.

[d120421]

Here's an interesting bit of trivia on 100 MEN AND A GIRL.:

 

According to spy novelist Eric Ambler (THE MASK OF DIMITRIOUS), 100 MEN AND A GIRL was Prime Minister Winston Churchill's favorite film, and Churchill used to watch it to celebrate British victories during World War II. Ambler recalled that Churchill would comment as the closing credits ran, "A great talent, Deanna Durbin!"

[d120421]

Here's an excerpt from a 1995 interview composer David Raksin (LAURA) gave about working with Leopold Stokowski on 100 MEN AND A GIRL. Given how quickly film scores were written during those days, it seems to me that Raksin would have had enough to do without being tested by "Stoki":

 

A Game of Tests With The Maestro

In the autumn of 1936 I returned from a working trip in England to join the composing staff at Universal Studio. There I found myself collaborating with several colleagues on music for various films whose sole unifying characteristic seems to have been the necessity to produce scores in no more than a few days ?the rush was the name by which this debilitating process was known. After a month or so of this, I had a call from Leo Forbstein, head of the music department at Warner Bros. studio, who had heard about the music I was composing from his younger brother, a secondary executive at Universal. The result was an agreement to work for Warner's on weekends not required by my home studio.

 

On "free" Fridays I would appear at the projection room of Forbstein's group, where I would be shown bits and pieces of Warner movies for which I was expected to produce music to be recorded during the following week. I saw only special footage such as main or end titles, chases and montages-sequences in which the music would be relatively audible. In most cases there was hardly time to learn what the rest of the story was about-let alone to see the entire film. In this haphazard way I became a kind of featured link in a super-assembly line; for example, I didn't learn until months later that the star of one of the movies I worked on was Bette Davis. I had only done a few of these madhouse stints when Forbstein informed me that I would no longer be working for him. Not having caught the sly grimace that accompanied this unwelcome bit of news, I was crestfallen-until he explained that he had been hiring me for those weekends from Universal for more money than they paid me per week. He now proposed to employ me without that studio as intermediary-an endorsement of my talent that more than doubled my income. This lasted for a while, until Charles Previn, head of Universal's music department, offered me the plum assignment of working as assistant to Leopold Stokowski, who had come to the studio to provide the music for a new film, ONE HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL, which would feature Universal's youthful star, Deanna Durbin. Of course I leaped at the chance, and soon found myself in the presence of the great man.

 

I am a Philadelphian by birth and by inclination and was thrilled to be working with a personal idol, the conductor of my favorite symphony orchestra. My father had often played in the Philadelphia Orchestra, when an extra clarinetist or bass clarinetist or perhaps a saxophonist (for Bizet's l'Arlesienne Suite II or Ravel's transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition) was required. Stokowski, whose remarkable memory must have recognized the significance of the name, did not bring this up, so neither did I. But he did attempt to determine whether I was equal to the demands of the position by casually proposing what were actually tests of my resourcefulness.

 

He began by giving me the first movement of a Beethoven piano sonata, of which I was to put the first section into score for symphony orchestra. He had marked it thoroughly with instructions concerning instrumental colors, doublings, etc. [i am therefore an informed witness in the matter of Stokowski transcriptions, which have often been mis-attributed to others by gossip mongers. I can testify that the task which he assigned me was not much more than glorified copying, and definitely not the work of a transcriber. Is it too much to hope that this will help to lay some of the wicked rumors to rest?] Of course I turned up the next morning with the score finished, as far as it went. Stokowski approved of everything (as well he might, since it was according to his wishes) except for one small item, where I had substituted an E-flat clarinet for the B-flat one he had expected. His raised eyebrow asked why. "Mr. Stokowski," I said, "if I had used a B-flat clarinet there, it would have had to rise out of the chalumeau (the lower register) into the upper register, and the tone quality would change." Amused, he agreed.

 

The next "test" came the following Friday. "I would like Miss Durbin to sing the aria of the Queen of Shemakha from Le Coq d'Or, so I will need the score at once." A breeze, thought I: everybody knows the marvelous aria of the Queen of Sheba, from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, The Golden Cockerel, with its sinuous descending chromatics. It should be easy to find. Sure! What we all "knew" was the version of the piece that appears in the orchestral suite, not the aria. So, realizing that the Eastern seaboard opera houses and music stores and libraries would be closing for the weekend at 2:00 pm, our time, I began to call every place I could think of. Everybody seemed to have the orchestra suite, but nobody had the opera aria or could offer any idea of where to find it.

 

I tried the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic and the 58th street Music Library in New York, the Boston Opera, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Opera, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Free Library and Fleischer Collection, all kinds of music publishers, libraries and stores in other East Coast cities. The time deadline soon passed, so I began to canvass other areas, gradually moving west-running up Universal's telephone bill. My unhappy suspicions were soon corroborated: plenty of suites, but no arias. By the time I finished talking to the San Francisco Opera people, Los Angeles Philharmonic librarians and several of the film studio music libraries, I realized that I was in trouble.

 

Still I knew that the elusive aria had to be somewhere, even that Stokowski must have performed it, but 1 could not bring myself to compromise the situation by asking him. Suddenly a dim light went on in my cranial attic, and I had my first real clue: somewhere in the Los Angeles area lived a former studio music librarian named Earl Wilson, who was reputed to have "all kinds of offbeat stuff." He had to be my man, especially since he was almost certainly my last man.

 

I knew just where to look for Earl Wilson. Out came the tattered old copies of the Musicians Union directory that every studio department saves, for reasons best known to pack rats and warehousemen. And sure enough, there was Mr. Wilson, somewhere in the northwestern reaches of the San Fernando Valley among the surviving estancias. All it took was a telephone call, but when I asked the big question it turned out that the score was still beyond my grasp-he didn't have one. "Earl," I said, "what about the parts ?" ?meaning the parts for individual instruments. "Have you possibly got a set of them?" "Parts?," said the voice on the other end, "Sure I got 'em-out in the barn somewhere."

 

My next move was to commandeer a company car, black, with chauffeur, and to join Earl in a search for the elusive music, which we found straight-away. I thanked him profusely and promised to bring it back in a few days. Returning to the studio, I put in a call for a fine copyist of the old school-a splendid musician, and in half an hour I was with him in his modest flat on the second floor of a dilapidated house on Hollywood Boulevard. Harry Cockayne was an elderly English gentleman, very frail actually, retired, I knew, and still supporting himself and his invalid wife. I showed him the set of orchestra parts: 12 woodwind parts, 11 brass and horns, 3 percussion, harp, violins I and II, viola, cello and bass-not a very long piece. "Harry," I said, "can you combine these into a score for me? You can do it in pencil if you prefer-but I need it by Monday." Mr. Cockayne assured me that it would be ready by Sunday evening, and I promised him I would see to it that he was paid three times the Union's copying rate.

 

According to plan I picked up the pencil score on Sunday, and spent the rest of the evening checking to see whether it was accurate, which it was in every detail. Bless you, dear Harry! The next morning I walked into Stokowski's bungalow at Universal and casually tossed the score onto his desk. Of course he knew what a task he had set me, the more so because it came on the eve of a weekend-so that my casual gesture was more than a bit snippy, and I probably deserved a sharp lecture. But the maestro was a most generous-hearted gentleman, with a gracious sense of humor, so he settled for a raised eyebrow and a quiet admonition. "Hm," he said, "very funny." Which is what comes of living a charmed life-in this case, mine.

[alix1929]

This is one I meant to set the DVR to catch, and didn't. I saw the last 20 minutes, but enjoyed that. I guess I haven't really seen Deanna Durbin in much, but she seemed likable to me.

 

I'm hoping it runs again, so I can see the whole thing. Can someone fill me in on the "unemployed musician" thing?