Deanna Durbin

Deanna Durbin, It Started with Eve

When the weather turns cold, there are few things I like more than staying inside my house, by the fire.  Chilly days like the ones we've been having make me want to either curl up with a book (I just started Hugo Cabaret, a kids' graphic novel that I've had on my shelf for years but never read) or to watch old movies.  I am a Shirley Temple fan, I must admit, and I like Judy Garland, but as far as the old cinema darlings go, Deanna Durbin is really one of my absolute favorites.  Whenever I was in high school and stayed home sick (admittedly, I wasn't always actually sick on those days), I would tune into TCM or AMC and watch old black and white movies.  Lucky for me, one of those sick days coincided with a showing of a  Deanna Durbin movie.  I think this may have been the first time I saw the movie It Started with Eve.  Later I would often try to find this movie, only to have no luck; I didn't realize at the time that it was a Deanna Durbin movie, and the only thing I remembered about it was that it had something to do with Eve and a piano.  Any time I tried to search for it, I would come up with Bette Davis' All About Eve.  Not too long ago, a few months maybe, I was sitting in the passenger seat on the way down to L.A. and the title popped up in my head.  A quick check on IMDB proved that I had finally remembered the movie I had so enjoyed.  I also loved watching Three Smart Girls and Three Smart Girls Grow Up.
Judy Garland is better remembered than Deanna Durbin, but Durbin was actually more popular during her era.  She was credited with keeping Universal Studios from going bankrupt in 1936. 

Three Smart Girls
(in three cute nautical inspired outfits)

from Three Smart Girls

from It Started with Eve

~Lori