Product Details

• Actors: Deanna Durbin, Pat O'Brien
• Directors: Frank Borzage
• Format: Import, NTSC, Full Screen
• Subtitles: Portuguese
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: classicline
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000ILINT6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,775 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This movie is NTSC Region All and WILL play on your DVD player. A young girl visits New York for two reasons: to see her half-brother, and to try to start a musical career.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My favorite songs.......the Russian medley, November 11, 2009

By 

Operafilly (Fallbrook, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: His Butler's Sister - Deanna Durbin Bonus Short Every Sunday (DVD)

I have all Deanna's movies and the gorgeous Russian medley is my favorite of all the songs. Also we have delightful character actors as butlers who cannot help Deanna enough in her new maid's job...Akim Tamiroff, Hans Conried, Si Jenks, Alam Mobray......
In fact, I'm only negative about the leads....Pat O'Brian (not funny at all, it should have been William Bendix) and Franchot Tone who looks ridiculous and acts worse. Rarely did Deanna get the leading men she deserved.

Very interesting to see Every Sunday as she sang like an angel at the tender age of 14.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine musical, January 29, 2008

By 

C.A. Arthur (Tacoma, Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: His Butler's Sister - Deanna Durbin Bonus Short Every Sunday (DVD)

This is a first class musical. The now hard-to-get release also features the 1936 (the ad has the date wrong) short "Every Sunday," featuring Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland. For eleven whole minutes, the teenagers sing up a storm. Great viewing. One hopes that someday the movie and the short will be available on DVD. They certainly should have been included in the Durbin "Sweetheart Pack" film collection.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Deanna Durbin sings a medley of Russian folk songs in Russian but "Nessun Dorma" in English, July 31, 2011

By 

H. Bala "Me Too Can Read" (Just moved to posh Marina Del Rey, CA - where if you drop a quarter, why, you just keep on walking) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: His Butler's Sister - Deanna Durbin Bonus Short Every Sunday (DVD)

I think there were two big reasons why folks today recall Judy Garland more clearly than Deanna Durbin. One is that Judy Garland's brand of music was more accessible to the audience. The other is that Deanna Durbin elected to quit the film industry at right around the height of her career when she was only 27 years old. Oh, okay, there's a chance that Garland may also have been the better actress. But Deanna will always have a warm place in the hearts of those who relish her old movies, back when she was a fresh-faced teen going around nonchalantly saving studio companies from ruination. For those who aren't too dang cool to occasionally listen to classical music, Deanna was the shiznit. She was the sweetest soprano, and with marvelous range.

HIS BUTLER'S SISTER is one of Deanna Durbin's latter films, and also one of her most entertaining (although, to come clean, I find all of her pictures highly watchable). At the time of its theater release in 1943, Deanna was only days away from her 22nd birthday, and she looks quite lovely. She plays Ann Carter, an aspiring singer who takes the train to New York to stay with her rich half-brother Martin and to make a go at a music career. Except that Martin (Pat O'Brien) isn't really rich at all, but rather a butler - and a horse race gambler - working for the renowned music composer Charles Gerard (a suave Franchot Tone). To Martin's chagrin, Ann promptly gets herself hired on as a housemaid in Gerard's household. Even though Charles Gerard is notorious for loathing sitting thru auditions, Ann is determined to have him listen to her perform, never mind that her disapproving brother seeks to curtail her every opportunity (dude doesn't want to lose his cushy job).

There's a fun madcap flavor to this movie, kicked off by the opening train sequence in which a pair of brassy ladies calling themselves the Sunshine Twins perform the comic number "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?" for the put-upon Charles Gerard. Durbin herself sings several nice songs, including "In the Spirit of the Moment," Victor Herbert's "When You're Away," "None Shall Sleep ("Nessun Dorma" in English)," and even a medley of Russian folk songs (including "Two Guitars"). More comedy relief presents itself in the form of the other squabbling manservants of assorted nationalities (including Amir Tamiroff as a Russian butler), all of whom are smitten with Durbin's character. Not only can Ann sing up a storm, she also possesses "pers" - as one sleazy show producer is wont to say - but what he means, of course, is "poise." Me, I'm sold. Deanna Durbin is beguiling in an unaffected way.

The plot draws out the suspense by persisting in obstructing Durbin and Franchot Tone's romance, with O'Brien - who here is kind of a heel - serving as the biggest impediment. Deanna keeps trying to audition for Franchot but, time after time, when Durbin does grace the screen with her singing, Franchot Tone would be in the next room, admiring the warbling but unable to identify Durbin as the author of that splendid voice. In one instance, he even attributes Deanna's singing "When You're Away" as being piped thru from a broken radio. It all eventually ends well, thanks to the elegant Butler's Ball. Except that, in the Butler's Ball, I wonder who waited on the guests, who took in the coats?

Awesomely, this DVD also comes with the classic 1936 musical short "Every Sunday," featuring Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland. "Every Sunday" essentially served as the screen test for these two girls. The plot revolves around Durbin and Garland coming to the rescue of a music professor whose ill-attended concerts at the park are threatened to be shut down. Durbin recorded the aria "Il Bacio" for this one, with Garland belting out the specialty number "The Americana." For the big finish, the girls duet to a reprise of "The Americana." "Every Sunday" is a must-see for fans of both Durbin and Garland.