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Despite its Larry Flynt-friendly title, Deanna Durbin is typically wholesome in the lavishly produced musical
One Hundred Men and a Girl, which finds its heroine saving a fledgling orchestra led by financially challenged father Adolph Menjou, along with help from Leopold Stokowski. Not surprisingly, music is literally center stage for much of this delightful film; highlights include Stoki's batonless conducting of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and Deanna's winsome trilling of Mozart's "Alleluia." The resulting package earned its star a special 1938 Academy Award (for her "spirit and personification of youth") and took home an Oscar of its own for Charles Previn's score.
--Steven Smith
From the Back Cover
Deanna Durbin's natural appeal shines through in this wonderful story of an inventive and determined young woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. It's a delightful romp that shows how persistence pays off.
The daughter of an unemployed musician, Durbin decides she will persuade the conductor Leopold Stokowski to help her launch an orchestra that will employ her widowed father and 99 other out-of-work musicians. Though faced with this seemingly impossible task, the undaunted Durbin leads her unemployed orchestra to the home of the unsuspecting Stokowski and conducts them in Liszt's "Second Hungarian Rhapsody" from the top of his staircase. His reaction is priceless as are the other numerous musical interludes including "It's Raining Sunbeams" and "A Heart That's Free".
This enchanting musical treat is a jubilant celebration of Hollywood and a tribute to one of the cinema's best-loved stars.
