"Three Smart Girls" is a dated family comedy, which somewhat resembles the later "The Parent Trap" films (1961 and 1998), as others have mentioned, and its lightweight for a Best Picture Oscar nominee, but I see its appeal. The narrative, while convoluted, can be fun to follow because of all its twists and turns--many of which involve the tried and true comedic formulae of masquerade and mistaken identity. Plus, technically, it's a competently put together vehicle for Universal's "new discovery," juvenile actress and singing soprano Deanna Durbin.
In it, a mother and her three daughters, along with a maid, are living in Switzerland. They find out that their ex-husband and estranged father of 10 years is set to remarry. Despite a decade of no contact with the man, this upsets the girls deeply. Bizarrely and pathetically, his portrait and pictures populate their home. The youngest girl, Peggy (played by Durbin), comes up with the idea to travel to New York to meet the old man--a father she has no memory of, while her two older sisters, now young women, would only have childhood memories of him--and to make him remarry their mother. When we meet the man, it turns out that he's a deadbeat dunderhead, as well as a successful businessman of some sort, who's being taken advantage of by his gold-digging fiancée and her mother. Now, 80 years past this film, when divorce is commonplace and women's fortunes aren't necessarily tied to keeping a man, at least in the Western world, this film's setup seems particularly ridiculous. Clearly the girls have done well without him, and, at first at least, he clearly wants nothing to do with them, so, good riddance, you'd think. But, no, this is the era when the Hays Code was enforced, so no such depiction of divorce will stand.
This coupling extends further to the two older sisters, who each find their own beau in the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Peggy serenades her father--literally, by singing "Someone to Care for Me" to him, as well as with her childish antics and vulnerability bringing out her daddy's previously-suppressed parental instincts. Durbin sings as though she's performing in an opera--her three songs mainly constituting the musical part of this family comedy. This style of singing is quite dated itself, as far as mainstream movies go, but the final song is woven into one of the picture's many scenes of masquerading. Peggy sings to police officers in an attempt to convince them that she's not who she actually is, but rather is in New York to perform at the opera. The main masquerade, besides the gold digger pretending to be in love with rich men, involves the girls and one of their beau's enlisting a Latin lover type, a gigolo Count, to seduce the father's fiancée, Donna, by him pretending to be rich, when in reality he's a poor drunkard. Another man, who is really wealthy and not a drunk, however, is mistaken by the girls for the Count. The rich man pretends to be the poor, drunk Count who pretends to be wealthy to seduce Donna; all the while, he's performing this double case of masquerade because he's attracted to one of the daughters, instead.
Such masquerade and mistaken identity plots have been a staple of comedies prior to "Three Smart Girls," including quite a few silent films I've seen based primarily on that theme, and it has continued to be popular--the later "Some Like It Hot" (1959) being one of the best, for example--but it still works here and may even benefit from the plot's overall convolution. Part of the appeal is that it's self-referential, by actors playing characters who act as other characters within the film, and the mistaken identity referring to the spectator's own suspension of disbelief or absorption in the story and characters. Otherwise, "Three Smart Girls" suffers from being dated and contrived and from the "three smart girls" being rather unsophisticated and obnoxious. Technically, wipes are used frequently for editing transitions, and there's a side-by-side multiple-exposure shot of a telephone conversation within wedding rings. Ultimately, there's still some charm left in this classic.
In it, a mother and her three daughters, along with a maid, are living in Switzerland. They find out that their ex-husband and estranged father of 10 years is set to remarry. Despite a decade of no contact with the man, this upsets the girls deeply. Bizarrely and pathetically, his portrait and pictures populate their home. The youngest girl, Peggy (played by Durbin), comes up with the idea to travel to New York to meet the old man--a father she has no memory of, while her two older sisters, now young women, would only have childhood memories of him--and to make him remarry their mother. When we meet the man, it turns out that he's a deadbeat dunderhead, as well as a successful businessman of some sort, who's being taken advantage of by his gold-digging fiancée and her mother. Now, 80 years past this film, when divorce is commonplace and women's fortunes aren't necessarily tied to keeping a man, at least in the Western world, this film's setup seems particularly ridiculous. Clearly the girls have done well without him, and, at first at least, he clearly wants nothing to do with them, so, good riddance, you'd think. But, no, this is the era when the Hays Code was enforced, so no such depiction of divorce will stand.
This coupling extends further to the two older sisters, who each find their own beau in the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Peggy serenades her father--literally, by singing "Someone to Care for Me" to him, as well as with her childish antics and vulnerability bringing out her daddy's previously-suppressed parental instincts. Durbin sings as though she's performing in an opera--her three songs mainly constituting the musical part of this family comedy. This style of singing is quite dated itself, as far as mainstream movies go, but the final song is woven into one of the picture's many scenes of masquerading. Peggy sings to police officers in an attempt to convince them that she's not who she actually is, but rather is in New York to perform at the opera. The main masquerade, besides the gold digger pretending to be in love with rich men, involves the girls and one of their beau's enlisting a Latin lover type, a gigolo Count, to seduce the father's fiancée, Donna, by him pretending to be rich, when in reality he's a poor drunkard. Another man, who is really wealthy and not a drunk, however, is mistaken by the girls for the Count. The rich man pretends to be the poor, drunk Count who pretends to be wealthy to seduce Donna; all the while, he's performing this double case of masquerade because he's attracted to one of the daughters, instead.
Such masquerade and mistaken identity plots have been a staple of comedies prior to "Three Smart Girls," including quite a few silent films I've seen based primarily on that theme, and it has continued to be popular--the later "Some Like It Hot" (1959) being one of the best, for example--but it still works here and may even benefit from the plot's overall convolution. Part of the appeal is that it's self-referential, by actors playing characters who act as other characters within the film, and the mistaken identity referring to the spectator's own suspension of disbelief or absorption in the story and characters. Otherwise, "Three Smart Girls" suffers from being dated and contrived and from the "three smart girls" being rather unsophisticated and obnoxious. Technically, wipes are used frequently for editing transitions, and there's a side-by-side multiple-exposure shot of a telephone conversation within wedding rings. Ultimately, there's still some charm left in this classic.