Webmaster's Note: A review for this movie is in progress.
Cast:
Deanna Durbin ... Pamela Drake
Kay Francis ... Georgia Drake
Walter Pidgeon ... John Arlen
Eugene Pallette ... Gov. Allen
Henry Stephenson ... Capt. Andrew
Cecilia Loftus ... Sara Frankenstein
Samuel S. Hinds ... Sidney Simpson
Lewis Howard ... Fred 'Freddie' Miller
S.Z. Sakall ... Karl Ober
Fritz Feld ... Oscar, the Headwaiter
Virginia Brissac ... Miss Holden, Summer Stock Teacher
Romaine Callender ... Mr. Evans, Summer Stock Teacher
Joe King ... First Mate Dan Kelly
Mary Kelley ... Lil Alden, Governor's Wife
Eddie Polo ... Quartermaster
Directed by William A. Seiter
Produced by Joe Pasternak
Gowns by Vera West
Background:
Jeanne Basinger pointed out in The Star Machine that “the career of Deanna Durbin is a fairy tale with no parallel in movie history. It began with a bang in 1936 and ended unexpectedly in 1948. Her original success was so sudden that she can actually qualify as a bona fide member of that dubious category ‘overnight sensation,’ and her ultimate stardom was so large that she has often been credited with ‘single-handedly’ saving Universal Pictures from financial ruin.”
Such claims of Deanna’s stardom can be proven with a film like It’s A Date (1940), one of the most popular films in the country when initially released. It wasn’t expensive to make, but caused a major sensation and is still to this day considered one of the best films she ever made. Luckily, Kay was wise enough to allow herself to play second-fiddle to this enormously talented and popular teenager. Walter Pidgeon, too, played wonderfully as the man who comes between the mother, who is tired of her stardom, and the daughter, who is trying to achieve it, while being envious of her mother’s success.
Kay’s test for It’s a Date was filmed in December, 1939, with filming beginning almost immediately after that. It’s a Date proved to be an even bigger box office hit than Durbin’s Three Smart Girls (1936), which had grossed $1.6 million at the box office. With It’s a Date grossing around the $2,000,000 mark, this “bona fide success” was well received by critics, too, who credited the film’s cast as being “uniformly excellent” and the pictures as being “improbable entertainment.”
Picturegoer Weekly’s review of the film was a triumph for Kay itself. The fan magazine noted that Kay was “back in the smarter, wittier setting which she should have never left, and she is acting better than ever. The tearful, trashy roles of the past five years are, I hope, gone forever. And Kay Francis at thirty-five is back on the road that she should have never left.”
Metro Goldwyn Mayer remade It’s a Date in 1950 with Jane Powell and Ann Southern, titled Nancy Goes to Rio, which was not as successful as its polished predecessor, despite Technicolor.
Deanna Durbin ... Pamela Drake
Kay Francis ... Georgia Drake
Walter Pidgeon ... John Arlen
Eugene Pallette ... Gov. Allen
Henry Stephenson ... Capt. Andrew
Cecilia Loftus ... Sara Frankenstein
Samuel S. Hinds ... Sidney Simpson
Lewis Howard ... Fred 'Freddie' Miller
S.Z. Sakall ... Karl Ober
Fritz Feld ... Oscar, the Headwaiter
Virginia Brissac ... Miss Holden, Summer Stock Teacher
Romaine Callender ... Mr. Evans, Summer Stock Teacher
Joe King ... First Mate Dan Kelly
Mary Kelley ... Lil Alden, Governor's Wife
Eddie Polo ... Quartermaster
Directed by William A. Seiter
Produced by Joe Pasternak
Gowns by Vera West
Background:
Jeanne Basinger pointed out in The Star Machine that “the career of Deanna Durbin is a fairy tale with no parallel in movie history. It began with a bang in 1936 and ended unexpectedly in 1948. Her original success was so sudden that she can actually qualify as a bona fide member of that dubious category ‘overnight sensation,’ and her ultimate stardom was so large that she has often been credited with ‘single-handedly’ saving Universal Pictures from financial ruin.”
Such claims of Deanna’s stardom can be proven with a film like It’s A Date (1940), one of the most popular films in the country when initially released. It wasn’t expensive to make, but caused a major sensation and is still to this day considered one of the best films she ever made. Luckily, Kay was wise enough to allow herself to play second-fiddle to this enormously talented and popular teenager. Walter Pidgeon, too, played wonderfully as the man who comes between the mother, who is tired of her stardom, and the daughter, who is trying to achieve it, while being envious of her mother’s success.
Kay’s test for It’s a Date was filmed in December, 1939, with filming beginning almost immediately after that. It’s a Date proved to be an even bigger box office hit than Durbin’s Three Smart Girls (1936), which had grossed $1.6 million at the box office. With It’s a Date grossing around the $2,000,000 mark, this “bona fide success” was well received by critics, too, who credited the film’s cast as being “uniformly excellent” and the pictures as being “improbable entertainment.”
Picturegoer Weekly’s review of the film was a triumph for Kay itself. The fan magazine noted that Kay was “back in the smarter, wittier setting which she should have never left, and she is acting better than ever. The tearful, trashy roles of the past five years are, I hope, gone forever. And Kay Francis at thirty-five is back on the road that she should have never left.”
Metro Goldwyn Mayer remade It’s a Date in 1950 with Jane Powell and Ann Southern, titled Nancy Goes to Rio, which was not as successful as its polished predecessor, despite Technicolor.
