Can't Help Singing [1944] [DVD]

If ever a film was filled with sheer joy, this is it. Technicolor only seemed to add to a film's quality in musicals like this one. Can't Help Singing was Deanna Durbin's only film in color and the vibrant hues are stunning as both Durbin and the outdoors have never been photographed so beautifully. The brilliance of the colors is striking and the story is fun and wonderful, making this not only one of Durbin's best films, but one of the best American musicals ever made.

Deanna is a delight as the young Senator's daughter, Caroline Frost, hilariously scheming to marry young calvary officer Robert Latham (David Bruce) against her father's wishes in this adaption of "Girl of the Overland Trail" by Samuel J. and Curtis B. Warshawsky. Jerome Kern wrote some great melodies for the film and E. Y. Harburg gave them lyrics still remembered decades later.

Deanna fakes a fever in hilarious fashion to get out of singing for the president so she can see Robert instead. But when that doesn't work and her dad (Ray Collins) wants to send her to see her uncle in New York, you can see the squirrel cage spinning in her head and the next thing you know she's gone missing, with a 5,000 dollar reward offered by her father for anyone who can find her. She's off to California, of course, as Robert has been sent with the 4th calvary to guard the Carstair holdings.

She gets fleeced along the way and ends up hitching her hopes on a wagon train heading out west. Akim Tamiroff and Leonid Kinskey are a hoot as the bumbling Russian thieves Gregory and Koppa, who spend the entire film attempting to steal Caroline's huge trunk but ending right back where they started! Circumstances pair her with card shark Johnny Lawlor (Robert Paige), who may need to find a new profession.

Of course they have a love-hate relationship which finally becomes just love. Before this one is over Caroline will have to pretend Gregory is her husband to get on the wagon train, then tell Johnny that she's going to California to marry the well known Carstairs (Thomas Gomez)! By the time they arrive in California, of course, all this catches up with Caroline and causes a lot of fun as she has to convince Johnny that he's really the one!

Her dad shows up and knows right away that Johnny's the right pick when he calls Caroline a liar. As her dad explains it, he's a Senator so she can't help it. She comes from a long line of liars! Gomez has a funny bit as Caroline gets him to play along and pretend he's broke up that she's not going to marry him. There is just one fun moment after another in this fine American musical set out west.

A rousing rendition of Californ-I-Ay and songs like Any Moment Now and the fabulous title tune, Can't Help Singing, are quite memorable. Deanna softly sings the Oscar nominated More and More to Johnny by a moonlit lake. This film makes you want more and more.

You'll find out what Cloud 17 is in this most delightful of films, and be glad you had a chance to see one of the greatest of stars in one of the finest American musicals. A real treat you simply can't miss if you love the movies.

There is a reason Deanna Durbin was one of the top Hollywood stars from the mid-Thirties through the Forties. She was a natural actress with a fine face and figure and a deep-throated soprano she knew how to use. She was one of those people the camera loves. Her personality, direct and warm, comes straight across to the audience. She could handle all the immaculate make-up Hollywood gave her as she matured into a young woman, but there always was something of the tomboy about her. She had a natural exuberance, a sense of humor and a good-natured willingness to take pratfalls or march into mud-holes. And she was a professional at her craft. In this movie, Can't Help Singing, watch how she manages to wander through the woods singing, through bushes and over hillocks, avoiding branches, and periodically fronting pretty scenery. This scene is shot in long takes. I have no idea how many takes it took, but Durbin manages to move, sing, smile, emote a bit and hit all of her marks without any sign of effort or evidence of an editor's scissors used to mask mistakes.

By the time Durbin was 14 she was major box office, and stayed there until she retired in 1950 at 29. She never liked the glitz and fan adulation of stardom. She and her third husband left for France right after she retired and that was that. She still lives just outside Paris, has turned down any number of film offers and hasn't granted an interview with anyone since 1949. As a person who was grounded in reality and decided to live her own life, Deanna Durbin gets a tip of my hat.

Can't Help Singing is a lush, colorful musical about a young woman, Caroline Frost, daughter of a wealthy senator, who leaves Washington against the wishes of her father to meet the man she intents to marry. He is a cavalry lieutenant, and the senator has seen to it that his regiment has been sent to California to guard gold during the start of the Gold Rush. Caroline is determined, and along the way has to deal with steamboats, Russian con-men, a cross-country wagon, Indians, finaglers, grafters, boss-men and card sharps. The card sharp winds up holding more than cards. He turns out to be the romantic lead. After 90 minutes of songs, comedy, adventures and the occasional kiss, all ends well for everyone.

This was Deanna Durbin's only color movie and the studio went all out. Can't Help Singing is stuffed with wide-open vistas, detailed studio sets and costumes that would make Vincente Minnelli envious. What makes the movie memorable, however (in addition to Durbin), are two songs from the score by Jerome Kern and E. Y. Harburg. From the moment the movie starts and we see Durbin driving a two-horse carriage singing "Can't Help Singing," it's time to sit back and smile. The number is one of those big, fat, intensely melodic songs that few composers besides Kern could pull off. She sings it twice, the last time part of a production that takes place in an outdoor western bath house. It pops up now and then as a melodic background line. The song works every time. The second Kern/Harburg show-stopper is "Californ-i-ay," where "the hills have more splendor; the girls have more gender." It's another major production number with a big melody and clever lyrics. Everyone and everything from the two leads to giant vegetables take part.

The movie is pleasant enough, although the two Russian con-men get tedious and Durbin's leading man, while manly enough, doesn't make much of an impression. The movie belongs only to Deanna Durbin, as all of her films did. With those two songs from Kern and Harburg, it's worth spending some time with.

I am a very elderly admirer of ms Durbin and her fantastic Voice plus Acting ability.
I first 'heard' her wonderful singing at the age of 13 years in the early thirties !.
From then on I was able over next decade and more to follow here career and films.
I saw most of her movies when in the armed forces and in many places even Jerusalem.
This film ,her only film in Colour was made toward the end of her career in films but
is a tribute to her skills as a then top 'Star' in Holywood. Sadly by 1948 she had got
disillusioned with the power & pains of the 'Holywood' system . so at just 27 years she
packed her bags and with husband left and settled in France ! . At 92 years there she still lives .
Eric Frith . Malta .