Smart Girl #1: “Hello friends! Welcome back to I’d Like To Blank The Academy! I do find these posts to be quite swell, don’t you Sister?”
Smart Girl #2: “Why yes Sister!
Smart Girl #3: (sings opera in Italian)
Smart Girl #2: …………
Smart Girl #1: “Okay, um, sure moving on, I cannot wait to read what these fabulous writers have to say about Three Smart Girls. What a delightful little romp that sounds like, don’t you think?”
Smart Girl #2: “Oh yes! And at barely an hour-and-a-half, a short one at that! I’m keen as a bean to watch this film, aren’t you Sister?”
Smart Girl #3: (continues singing opera)
Smart Girls #1 & 2: “Just … okay, whatever, let’s get into it…”
Previews
What, if anything, did we know about this coming attraction before we watched it?
Ellen: The runtime. After Summer of Sweat, 1 hour and 24 minutes has never looked better!
Tyler: (see above)
Plots & Feelings
This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
Short Version (courtesy of IMDb): Three sisters scheme to reunite their divorced parents before their wealthy father marries a conniving gold digger.
Long Version (modified from Wikipedia1 and formatted to fit your screen):
What’s that on the wind? Oh, is it the operatic tones of one Penny Craig, sailing about with her older sisters Joan and Kay in a lake outside their home in Switzerland? Why yes it is! In a flash, Penny ceases her impromptu concert and yeets herself into the lake to come in for lunch, leaving her older sisters to bring the boat in. The mood around the table is tense, because Mother has just found out her ex-husband of 8 years is going to be remarried to young socialite Donna Lyons2.
Ellen: Penny lowkey roasts her mom for the sheer number of pictures of “Daddy” all around the house, so we know she’s still in love with him.
That night in their room, our precocious sisters of unknown age lament this turn of event. Penny is all for busting into New York City like shock troops, but unfortunately these girls are generationally wealthy, not independently. Lucky for them, their housekeeper Martha is stone-faced with a heart of gold, and she buys them tickets and accompanies them to the Big Apple.
Tyler: The idea of just randomly showing up in NYC is almost as preposterous as this strange family dynamic where all of the women are obsessed with “Daddy” despite seemingly not seeing him in nearly a decade.
Meanwhile, Mr. Judson Craig is seemingly obsessed with his young fiancée, focusing only on losing weight for her and sending an endless supply of flowers. His young business manager Bill Evans is deeply annoyed by the whole situation. Not as annoyed as Donna is when she (wearing animal print so we know she’s evil) and Judson are interrupted at their lunch at The Carlton by three girls yelling “Daddy!!!” He barely remembers them and can’t get their names right, but they’re delighted to see him nonetheless. Kay, the middle child, excuses herself to send their mother a telegram3 informing her of their arrival, and the handsome Lord Stuart of Australia sees her and starts crushing.
Tyler: The dichotomy between the sisters’ and Judson’s reactions to seeing each other was unbelievably cringey. Again, we have no reason to understand why they love him so much because he seems pretty awful so far? Though hopefully this means someone will have some sort of character arc/development.
They have dinner that evening at Judson’s house, along with Donna’s mother Mrs. Lyons, who is also not pleased about the girls’ arrival. She advises her daughter to flatter them into submission so as not to discover their evil, gold-digging plot4. The girls are not fooled at all, and Penny goes so far as to “accidentally” stain Mrs. Lyons’ dress as she’s sent to bed for being fourteen. Donna prepares to serenade everyone with a song, but Penny manages to interrupt from upstairs by moving the beds around because Martha is honk-shooing up a storm.
Bill Evans pops by for Business reasons, and Joan and Kay confide in him their concerns, and he confides right back that Donna would absolutely leave their dad for a richer man in a heartbeat. They conspire to set her up with the drunk, goofy, and strapped-for-cash Count Arisztid. Donna urges Judson to send the girls home, and when he goes upstairs to do just that, they charm him into delaying. This is capped off by Penny singing her rendition of the song Donna attempted earlier in the bed that she and her father tried to put back together.
Ellen: It is at this point I yelled, “that had better be her actually singing,” because each song is too shoehorned in and goes on for far too long to simply be for plot.
Tyler: You may or may not learn this in Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat? 👀
Tyler: I also find it kind of annoying how the movie just grinds to a halt so that Penny can sing an entire song. It’s like they’re trying to drag out an already short movie.
Ellen: Yeah it’s like no one told them they’re allowed to abridge it.
The Craig girls enjoy the amenities in their father’s… office? Home? Whatever, they play on the gym equipment, and Judson informs them that they’ll all be going out to the Jungle Club tonight (minus Penny). Bill comes by to set the scheme in motion. He’s being sent to Philadelphia for the night, but he’ll give the Count a magazine to identify him and has already paid him to participate. What could go wrong! At the club, the Count puts the magazine under his jacket and promptly forgets about it completely when someone offers to buy him drinks. And who should pick up the magazine but the actually rich Count Stuart! He joins the Judson’s and dutifully begins flirting with Donna, but is clearly much more interested in dancing with Kay.
Count Stuart sends both Kay and Donna flowers and convinces the former to meet him at the Plaza while standing up the latter for lunch at the Bristol. At Donna’s house, Judson sees the flowers, and Mrs. Lyons, knowing that Donna has as of now written off the Count for standing her up, manipulates him into agreeing to be married in Atlantic City tomorrow! Bill returns from Philly and realizes he and Kay both gave the Count money to take Donna to lunch, so he goes and beats up Arisztid. Identities are now unmistaken, and chaos ensues.
Tyler: It is at this point that I got a bit tired of the “silly mistaken identity” plot device (and genre?). Maybe it’s just jarring to me after watching so many relatively straightforward (albeit long) Epics during the Summer of Sweat (not to mention a potential future Epic in Oppenheimer), but things just don’t need to be this convoluted.
The plan is falling apart at the seams, and Penny once again takes charge, asking Judson if he loves Donna more than them. She tells him the truth of why they came and that their mother is arriving in a few days. He is unmoved, and Penny has disappeared in the morning. The family is frantic, and Penny is picked up by the cops. She charms them, how else, with song! They bring her home, and Judson finally picks his daughters over the hottie.
To wrap up: the Lyons get on a ship to Australia, expecting Count Stuart, but actually meet Count Arisztid instead! The scammers have all found each other. Kay and Count Stuart kiss! Bill and Joan have gotten together too! And the former Mrs. Craig arrives by boat, and she and Judson warmly shake hands.
Intermission
Even though ILTBTA is free, please indulge us further and enjoy this quick “advertisement.”
This installment of ILTBTA is brought to you by … the power of song!
Need to entertain yourself on an otherwise boring sailing outing? Song!
Attempting to dissuade your father from marrying *gulp* an alto?? Music!
Looking for a surefire way to get the NYPD on your side in under five minutes***? IT’S AN ARIA, BABY!
***Disclaimer: Results may vary. Most effective if you are a cute girl, particularly a white one.
Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat?
Love a good Wikipedia rabbit hole in search of some fun facts? Us too.
Three Smart Girls’ Wikipedia page has some interesting facts and anecdotes that we recommend you read through, but here are a few of our favorites:
Three Smart Girls, which was based on an original story, was originally meant to be a starring vehicle for young Broadway actress Jeanne Dante. After Dante dropped out, Universal Studios producer Joe Pasternak wanted Judy Garland (three years before she rose to fame in Wizard of Oz), but rival studio MGM wouldn’t loan her out to another studio. Pasternak eventually landed on Deanna Durbin, who had recently co-starred in a short film with Garland, to play Penny.
Tyler: I’d just like to acknowledge that, while not exactly groundbreaking, the story was at least entirely original. It’s a welcome return to form for the First Wiki-Wiki-Whaaat Bullet Where I Tell You What The Movie Was Based On, especially after The Summer of Sweat and all those historical dramas.
Tyler: It’s also very clear that they were looking for a Judy Garland clone, the precocious brunette with an incredible singing voice … even her intonation when speaking sounds like her. The whole Hollywood studio system and actor-studio contractual relationship is fascinating given how much influence it likely had in nearly every casting decision for movies back then.
Even at a young age, Durbin was a respected opera singer. At the age of thirteen, she was called in to audition for a role as a young opera singer and was given a sixth-month contract with MGM by legendary executive Louis B. Mayer on the spot. That same year, she auditioned for the singing voice of Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (though she was rejected by Walt Disney because her voice was “too old”) and turned down an audition for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
Ellen: Even though I was annoyed by some of the songs, there’s no denying the girl’s got talent!
Two years after the release of Three Smart Girls, Durbin received an Academy Juvenile Award along with Mickey Rooney. Several of the statuettes have been either lost or stolen over the years, including one for Judy Garland’s win the year after Durbin’s.
Tyler: I wish The Academy would bring this back!
Ellen: I want a documentary about attempts to recover the stolen statues!
Three Smart Girls spawned two sequels: 1939’s Three Smart Girls Grow Up and 1943’s Hers to Hold. Durbin was the only one of the original three sisters to appear in all three films.
In Memoriam
What movie did we try to watch but couldn’t find?
Welcome to the inaugural edition of “In Memoriam,” in which we eulogize a movie that we tried to watch but failed to because, somehow in The Year Of Our Lord 2023, it is not available to watch on any streaming service or anywhere else on the internet. We withhold the right to resurrect these movies if they become available to watch, but for now they’re basically dead to us because we can’t write about them in ILTBTA or even check them off The Spreadsheet.
Today, we honor Prizzi’s Honor, a 1985 “black comedy crime” film (which nowadays almost sounds racist) starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner as two assassins in love who are hired to kill one another. The movie is the last movie by director John Huston released in his lifetime, and features his daughter and then-girlfriend of Nicholson: Anjelica Huston. John Huston was a prolific and prominent writer/director known for several film classics like The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen.
Prizzi’s Honor is remembered by its eight Academy Awards nominations and one Guild of German Art House Cinemas Awards nomination.
Oscar NomNomNomz
Since we all know a movie is nothing without the food and drink it incorporates.
It’s now time to award the Oscar for Best Snacktor in a Supporting Role5. And the nomnomnominees are:
Lunch in your Swiss lakeside estate
A cocktail from The Jungle Club
Something from Count Arisztid’s flask
And the Oscar goes to … a cocktail from The Jungle Club! Unfortunately, it was spilled by some raucous dancing, so we will accept this award on its behalf.
Fill In The Blank
How did we really feel about The Academy nominating this?
Ellen: I’d like to break up The Academy’s impending marriage to an obvious bad actor! There’s not a ton to say about this one: it’s cute, it’s surprisingly not misogynistic, and it was under 90 minutes! Having not seen any of the other nominees from 1936, it’s hard to say if I think this deserved it or not, but especially after the heavy Epics we’ve been covering, I definitely have a soft spot for some well-made fluff.
Tyler: I’d like to help The Academy fix their bed so they can sleep on their decision to nominate this for Best Picture. I very much agree with you that while this is a cute movie, it’s tough (for now!) to determine how worthy it is of being nominated. Even so, I have a hard time believing there weren’t several movies better than this that came out in 1936. This is another mistaken identity movie that could've been avoided with a simple conversation (a la earlier ILTBTA topic Top Hat), just without much else to make it entertaining. In hindsight, it’s clear that the studio was trying to make Deanna Durbin a “thing,” but they did so a bit too heavy handedly for my liking. To be clear, this is through no fault of Durbin, who was obviously an extremely talented singer and plays the role of precocious little girl pretty well.
Other complaints include not developing the father enough in the beginning to make him likable enough to justify the actions of his daughters, and not giving the other sisters (whose names I cannot for the life of me remember) something worth doing, aside from a shoehorned love story. All that being said, it did feel nice to turn my brain off for a bit.
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
If you have plots and feelings of your own (on the movie or ILTBTA in general), feel free to comment on the post or simply reply to the email. If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!
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ILTBTA is also on Letterboxd, the social networking site for movie fans. Follow us there to read our Spreadsheet comments of our ILTBTA movies, plus our ratings of other movies we watch!
If you’d like to start a wild Best Picture journey of your own, feel free to download a copy of The Spreadsheet. Bonus: checking off the boxes is oddly satisfying.
Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
For our next ILTBTA post, we jump nearly eight decades in the future to celebrate the Eagles’ Week 1 win with 2014’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The black-comedy/drama stars Michael Keaton as a has-been Hollywood actor preparing for a Broadway play, and also features a wide supporting cast from Zach Galifinakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts. Birdman is available to stream on HBO Max and can be rented from the first place you decide to click on when you Google “Birdman movie streaming.”
Until then, next time just stay in Switzerland!
P.S. This post is dedicated to Tyler’s late cousin, Erik, who passed away recently at the all-too-early age of 27. In his memory, we here at ILTBTA ask that you please donate your time and/or money to a charity of your choice, and just try to be nice to people. Because you never know how much longer you have with them. We love you Erik.
This is a hall-of-famer in terms of short Wikipedia summaries: two bullets, four sentences total!
She’s named after a fearsome apex predator? I’m sure she’ll be an absolute peach!
It costs $5, which is $110 in today’s money!
Sounds like my ex-wife!
Results tabulated and certified by the accountants at Ernst & Yum™.