Director: Henry Koster
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Top Billed Actors: Deanna Durbin, Adolphe Menjou, Alice Brady
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Scoring - Universal Studio Music Department
Nominated for 4 more:
Outstanding Production - Universal
Best Original Story - Hans Kräly
Best Sound Recording - Homer G. Tasker
Best Film Editing - Bernard W. Burton
Plot: A girl ditches two other smart girls and accidentally on purpose gets her father and 99 other unemployed men to play for Leopold Stokowski a few years before he meets the mouse.
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Top Billed Actors: Deanna Durbin, Adolphe Menjou, Alice Brady
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Scoring - Universal Studio Music Department
Nominated for 4 more:
Outstanding Production - Universal
Best Original Story - Hans Kräly
Best Sound Recording - Homer G. Tasker
Best Film Editing - Bernard W. Burton
Plot: A girl ditches two other smart girls and accidentally on purpose gets her father and 99 other unemployed men to play for Leopold Stokowski a few years before he meets the mouse.
The 10th Academy Awards saw a second consecutive year in which Henry Koster directed Deanna Durbin in a Best Picture nominee. One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) promotes Durbin from a supporting role to a role that is involved in nearly every scene of the film. Appropriately, she also sings a few songs throughout the film. Her father is portrayed by Adolphe Menjou, who is acting in one of three Best Picture nominees that year. He's like the Michael Stuhlbarg of the 1930s! Perhaps the most lasting accomplishment from the film, especially from Oscar's standpoint, is that this won the Best Scoring award without much original music. This opened the Academy's eyes to the intent of the award and the Best Original Score distinction was born. Starting the following year, there were two score awards - one for the original score and one for general scoring. The classical music selected for the film is all wonderful, but I appreciate the Best Original Score Oscar to this day, so I am ecstatic to see this change with the 11th Awards.
Circling back to Durbin, its easy to see why Universal took so much stock in her. Not only can she competently perform in her character - she has a certain charm and zest to her rapid line readings - but she's a wonderful singer. Like Judy Garland, she's a child actress that did double duty as an actor and singer with neither role suffering all too much. Sure, she teeters on a bit of the annoying side here when she seems to be the most adult one in the room when sharing the screen with Menjou and the flutist, Mischa Auer, but this is pertinent to moving the story along; she also might teeter on the annoying side when she speaks a hundred miles an hour with a very high-pitched tone. When its all said and done, its nice to see her character responsible for bringing the orchestra together and her moment on stage in the movie's conclusion only works because of Durbin's endearing work earlier in the film. Something else that might be a mixed bag is the inclusion of so much music. I'm a pretty big fan of classical music so this is a highlight of the film for me, but if you aren't accustomed to symphony orchestras playing through five straight minutes of music, these moments might drag in an otherwise shorter film. The moment when the jobless orchestra plays in Stokowski's house is both the visual and aural climax of the film. Patsy accomplished her goal and we reap the benefits.
There isn't much to criticize in this short, fun, and music-filled picture. When the Academy has such a large scope of Best Picture nominees, there seems to be room for these inconsequential but enjoyable flicks. Nothing stands out as the "best" of the year but nothing offends either. There's kind of a dull subplot in which the rich guys play dumb pranks on each other and some of the comedy is a bit dated, but these are minor complaints. Also, a lot of this seems implausible, when a 100-man orchestra can play a complicated piece of music exquisitely without rehearsing, but that's the way it goes in musicals.
Overall, Deanna Durbin sings and acts her way to stardom and Leopold Stokowski conducts renditions of gorgeous classical music so much so that a new Oscar category had to be created. Although the plot is mostly implausible and there isn't much to think about afterwards, this is still an entirely amusing music-filled romp.
My Score: 7/10
Circling back to Durbin, its easy to see why Universal took so much stock in her. Not only can she competently perform in her character - she has a certain charm and zest to her rapid line readings - but she's a wonderful singer. Like Judy Garland, she's a child actress that did double duty as an actor and singer with neither role suffering all too much. Sure, she teeters on a bit of the annoying side here when she seems to be the most adult one in the room when sharing the screen with Menjou and the flutist, Mischa Auer, but this is pertinent to moving the story along; she also might teeter on the annoying side when she speaks a hundred miles an hour with a very high-pitched tone. When its all said and done, its nice to see her character responsible for bringing the orchestra together and her moment on stage in the movie's conclusion only works because of Durbin's endearing work earlier in the film. Something else that might be a mixed bag is the inclusion of so much music. I'm a pretty big fan of classical music so this is a highlight of the film for me, but if you aren't accustomed to symphony orchestras playing through five straight minutes of music, these moments might drag in an otherwise shorter film. The moment when the jobless orchestra plays in Stokowski's house is both the visual and aural climax of the film. Patsy accomplished her goal and we reap the benefits.
There isn't much to criticize in this short, fun, and music-filled picture. When the Academy has such a large scope of Best Picture nominees, there seems to be room for these inconsequential but enjoyable flicks. Nothing stands out as the "best" of the year but nothing offends either. There's kind of a dull subplot in which the rich guys play dumb pranks on each other and some of the comedy is a bit dated, but these are minor complaints. Also, a lot of this seems implausible, when a 100-man orchestra can play a complicated piece of music exquisitely without rehearsing, but that's the way it goes in musicals.
Overall, Deanna Durbin sings and acts her way to stardom and Leopold Stokowski conducts renditions of gorgeous classical music so much so that a new Oscar category had to be created. Although the plot is mostly implausible and there isn't much to think about afterwards, this is still an entirely amusing music-filled romp.
My Score: 7/10