ONE-HUNDRED MEN AND A GIRL: Blu-ray (Universal, 1937) Kino Lorber
When MGM dropped contract player, Deanna Durbin in
favor of Judy Garland, it effectively acquired one of the truly great
all-around artists of the 20th century, but sacrificed another, capable
of generating a highly lucrative stream of revenue for the company. With her angel-winged
soprano, classically trained by Andrés de Segurola (a former Metropolitan Opera
bass), Deanna Durbin did not remain unemployed in Hollywood for long. And
Universal’s acquisition of the eager star would continue to fill its coffers
for nearly a decade. What set Durbin
apart from many of her contemporaries was her ability to carry the acting load
as well as a tune. When she emoted, she reigned as a believable bright young
thing who sparkled with sincerity, and when she sang…well…it was absolutely
thrilling. Thus, this Canadian-born chanteuse, later to retreat to France in
her emeritus years, would mature from winsome ingenue to chart-topping musical
movie star under Uni’s auspices throughout the 1940’s. Director, Henry Koster’s
One Hundred Men and A Girl (1937) benefits two-fold; first, from Durbin’s
magnetic personality, already tested and proven the year before in Three
Smart Girls (1936, and, the picture credited with pulling Universal back
from the brink of bankruptcy) and second, from the curious drawing power of
Leopold Stokowski, the imminent conductor, whose frizzy long-haired command of
the podium - sans baton - and Toucan Sam-sized schnoz, ear-marked him as one of
the most readily identifiable figures in classical music.
In his time, no name in classical music meant more to
a movie marquee than Stokowski, to achieve ever-lasting fame in the flicks as
the conductor of Walt Disney’s animated concert masterpiece, Fantasia
(1940). Stokowski was also music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic
Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony of the Air and
several others, in addition to founding the All-American Youth Orchestra, the
New York City Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra and the American
Symphony Orchestra. Despite his third billing in One Hundred Men and A Girl,
it is Stokowski’s visage first to appear after the iconic mid-thirties’ art
deco mirror globe Universal logo; the grand master, conducting what appears to
be the Philadelphia Orchestra in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5
in E minor: Fourth Movement, under the main titles. In reality, Stokowski had pre-recorded
the picture’s classical repertoire on a then state-of-the-art multi-channel
stereo system, with that aforementioned group of musicians at the Philadelphia
Academy (of which he was principal ‘guest’ conductor). But the faces we see in
the movie are those of L.A. based players, merely miming to these recordings.
One Hundred Men and A Girl is a charming
case of epic misdirection, the screenplay by Bruce Manning, Charles Kenyon and James
Mulhauser inveigling Ms. Durbin in what otherwise could be considered a
terrible brouhaha with Stokowski who, at least by today’s standards, appearing
as himself, remains a remote, and arguably, rather uncompromising figure. Apart
from its stature, as an Oscar-nominated Best Picture, One Hundred Men and A
Girl provided audiences with the opportunity to bask in the afterglow of
some truly outstanding symphonic works. Lest we forget, in Depression-era America,
only the privileged were likely to have studied ‘music appreciation’, much
less, attended a live concert. So, mass exposure to the likes of Mozart, Liszt
and Verdi, was rare and largely left to the movies to exploit. And, at least in
One Hundred Men and a Girl, the public was not to be disappointed.
Stokowski conducts Hector Berlioz’s Rakoczy March, the overture from
Ferdinand Hérold’s Zampa, ou la fiancée de marbre, Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin:
Prelude to Act III, and, Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C
sharp minor: Lento a capriccio. Durbin is given the opportunity to
accompany the great man in A Heart That’s Free, Mozart’s Alleluja: from
the motet 'Exultate, jubilate' (K.165), and, in the grand finale, warbles
Libiamo ne' lieti calici, from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. She
also sings the bouncy pop tune, ‘It’s Raining Sunbeams’ expressly
written for the picture by Frederick Hollander and Sam Coslow.
To suggest One Hundred Men and A Girl as high
art is a bit much. Rather, it is pulpy, sugary sweet and decidedly slanted to
appeal to the popcorn-muncher, albeit, with a transfusion of the highbrow to
offset its treacle. The picture was produced by Hungarian-born zeitgeist,
Joseph Pasternak, who later would do for Jane Powell over at MGM, what he did at
Universal for Durbin – namely, to make juvenile sopranos pop icons of their
time. Indeed, every girl of that certain age wanted to sing like Durbin. And
Durbin’s wide-eyed approach to acting, unaffected in these early films, made it
at least appear as if every girl just might, given half the opportunity and the
right breaks in life. In One Hundred Men and A Girl, Durbin is Patricia
Cardwell, the precocious teenage daughter of John (Adolphe Menjou), an
unemployed trombone player. For months, John has been desperately trying to
broker an audience with Stokowski. Indeed, he has not worked in his profession
in a little over the year, and, presently, is nearing eviction from the tenement
house he shares with his daughter. As John’s big break is not forthcoming –
Stokowski practically has his manager, Russell (Jameson Thomas) and stage
doorman (Jack Scott), toss John out on his ear after crashing the concert
backstage – fate smiles indirectly when well-to-do scatterbrain, Mrs. Frost
(Alice Brady) drops her beaded handbag outside the concert hall. Attempting to
do the right thing – give it back – and thoroughly thwarted in this endeavor,
John bitterly returns to the tenement, lying to his landlady, Mrs. Tyler (Alma Kruger)
about having secured a place in Stokowski’s symphony orchestra. He pays for his
overdue rent with money from Mrs. Frost’s stolen handbag and reluctantly lies
to Patricia too.
Naturally, the girl is overjoyed – at first, as is
John’s best friend, struggling flutist, Michael Borodoff (Misha Auer). Pulling
Michael aside, John confides the truth – the two conspiring to keep it from
Patricia. Alas, the next afternoon Patricia sneaks off to the concert hall to
watch her father rehearse and is devastated to learn firsthand from Stokowski he
has openly lied to her. Returning home hours later, having spent the afternoon
at a popular hangout for unemployed musicians, John keeps up appearances until
Patricia tearfully confesses, she knows the truth. John also admits to stealing
the handbag. Now, Patricia elects to return the handbag to Mrs. Frost. The socialite
is in the middle of entertaining friends at her fashionable penthouse but is
amused by Patricia’s impromptu arrival, moreover, when Patricia gets Frost to
admit she does not remember the contents of the purse and gets a fellow party
guest to pay her ‘reward’ for its return – the exact amount of $52.30 John
spent to pay the rent – thus, returning the amount to Frost and calling it
even. Learning Patricia can sing, Mrs. Frost commands she perform for her
guests immediately. Patricia dazzles the crowd and afterward, Frost proposes
that if Patricia is serious about helping her father, she should form her own
orchestra. Rather obtusely, Frost promises to have her husband, John R. Frost
(Eugene Pallette) promote them on his radio program.
Elated and taking Mrs. Frost at her word, Patricia
rushes back to share the good news with her father and his friends. They have a
sponsor and must, with all speed, begin rehearsals in preparation for their big
debut. John hires a garage for the practice sessions. However, the owner (Billy
Gilbert) demands immediate payment for these facilities, forcing Patricia to
run off to Frost’s penthouse to acquire an advance on their money. Instead,
Patricia finds Mrs. Frost has already sailed for Europe and Mr. Frost is quite
unwilling to indulge his wife’s whimsy on an unknown and unproven orchestra. What
they need is a name. To this end, Patricia crashes Stokowski’s rehearsals and,
after barely eluding the doorman, greatly impresses Stokowski with her spur-of-the-moment
vocal accompaniment. Though impressed, Stokowski absolutely refuses to even
entertain the notion of helping Patricia and her father promote their
orchestra. Deeply wounded, Patricia elects to throw a fly in the ointment when,
having skulked off to Stokowski’s private office, she inadvertently suggests to
New York Times’ editor, Ira Westing (Edwin Maxwell), Stokowski will likely
postpone his European concert tour to direct an orchestra at home, composed
entirely of unemployed musicians. In a Depression-era America, this proves
quite a story, confounding Mr. Frost, while also encouraging the pompous
windbag to reconsider featuring John and his musicians on the radio. Predictably,
rather than endure a scandal over a retraction of the story, Stokowski does
delay his departure for Europe and conducts John’s musicians after Patricia
sneaks everyone into Stokowski’s mansion to play for him after dark. At the resultant concert hall venue,
Stokowski brings out Patricia who, for the first time, is quite unable to speak
in front of the audience, but nevertheless, manages to trill magnificently to close
out the picture.
“Everybody said you can't top Three Smart Girls,” Pasternak mused
years later, “I said you can top anything as long as you're honest, you
don't fool yourself, you get the right subject and you create a public taste
for it.” Indeed, One Hundred Men and A Girl (initially titled, 120
Men and One Girl) proved wildly popular with audiences. At the time of its
release, Stokowski was already on his way out as co-conductor of the
Philadelphia Orchestra – citing political and creative differences with
conductor, Eugene Ormandy who, in Stokowski’s absence, would assume total control
over the orchestra’s future. The controversy might, in fact, clarify why the
city and the orchestra billed as Stokowski’s in the movie are never clearly
identified. For One Hundred Men and A Girl’s soundtrack, a new
stereophonic system of audio recording was developed. And although the picture’s
soundtrack was recorded in mono, creating stereo masters for its classical
orchestrations, isolating and remixing the sound later, resulted in a new sonic
clarity that greatly impressed the critics. It also spectacularly dovetailed into
Walt Disney’s passion for Fantasia – eventually conducted by Stokowski,
in genuine 6-track stereo – a complex system of recording and reproduction,
dubbed ‘Fantasound’ by Disney.
Reportedly, the casting of Stokowski was Durbin's idea.
However, given Durbin’s own success in pictures had only just been cemented a
year earlier, this story may be apocryphal at best. At the outset, the
production encountered one minor snag when Paramount Pictures suggested they
had signed Stokowski to an exclusive contract. However, as this proved only to
be a verbal agreement, Stokowski reneged and joined Universal instead. While One Hundred Men and A Girl was
not Deanna Durbin’s first musical at Universal, it was, for some years thereafter,
her highest-grossing endeavor, and, in 1949, its theatrical reissue marked an
end to her 13-year tenure at the studio. Viewed today, One Hundred Men and a
Girl remains a charming programmer from the Universal stable – tricked out
in decidedly more finery and funds than the studio was used to lavishing on
single productions. Clearly, they were
willing to gamble on Durbin, whose fresh-faced appeal had already rung cash
registers around the world the year before. The father/daughter chemistry
between Durbin and Menjou is palpably engaging here. Interestingly, Eugene Pallette
and Alice Brady appeared as an old married couple the year before in Gregory
LaCava’s champagne cocktail of a screwball comedy, My Man Godfrey (1936).
Although delightful in One Hundred Men and A Girl, the pair are rarely
to appear in a scene together. Brady’s
Mrs. Frost is actually jettisoned entirely from the story after its first act
when, presumably, she sails for Europe, leaving the particulars of the mess she
has begun to be straightened out by her curmudgeonly husband. The loss of Brady’s
nutty society dame remains the one genuinely unforgivable sin committed in the
movie. Billy Gilbert is hilarious in his cameo as the unnamed garage owner,
while noted comedian, Frank Jenks does a funny bit of business as a nonplussed
taxi driver. In virtual walk-ons, Howard Hickman and Jed Prouty as a pair of
amiable swells who enjoy playing practical jokes on Pallette’s John Frost,
practically steal every moment in which they appear. In the last analysis, One
Hundred Men and A Girl is an adorably escapist romantic fantasy – the affair
des artistes, between Durbin’s teenage Miss and the long-hair, Stokowski, an
odd, yet serviceable pairing to say the least. Given the heavy-hitting
competition of 1937, this movie’s Best Picture Oscar nomination seems
conciliatory at best. Personally, I think Victor Fleming’s Captain’s
Courageous ought to have taken home the honors. As it stands, The Life
of Emile Zola walked off with the honors.
One Hundred Men and A Girl arrives on
Blu-ray via Kino Lorber’s alliance with Universal Home Video. Predictably, Uni’s
efforts here are just a B-, at best. Likely, no original elements survive on
which to base a full-blown restoration. But there are still some basic
considerations Uni ought to have applied to ready this deep catalog title for
its hi-def debut. For starters, the image throughout is severely afflicted by
gate weave. On smaller monitors, the results are minorly distracting. On large
screens, and in projection, this shortcoming is equilibrium-altering, the image
bobbing from side to side or up and down, depending on the shot. For some inexplicable
reason, only long-shots appear to suffer from this problem. As at least half
the movie is made up of these, at least half the run time causes considerable
eye strain as picture instability, even within the frame, creates an uneasy and
distracting bounce. The B&W elements are, mostly pleasing. Contrast is
adequate. The image is rather grain-dense, with grain itself often adopting a
slightly unnatural ‘clumpy’ quality. There is also some slight edge enhancement
and intermittent age-related artifacts, plus damage baked into the image. Fades,
dissolves and opticals are plagued by residual softness. Given the stature of
the movie – at least, in its day – one would have hoped for Uni to take the
high road and remaster it properly for Blu-ray. Alas, no. The audio is 1.0 DTS
mono and, regrettably, strident in spots. I am sincerely wondering if any of
the original stereo tracks for Stokowski’s orchestrations have survived the
interim. What’s here is mono. The orchestral portions sound quite good, but
Durbin’s soprano often grates on the acoustic nerve – especially when she hits
those high C’s. Historian, Stephen Vagg offers a fairly comprehensive audio
commentary on the making of the movie as well as anecdotal tales from behind
the camera. Good stuff here and well worth a listen. At present, One Hundred
Men and A Girl is only available as part of Kino’s Deanna Durbin
Collection, Vol. 1. The unspoken
promise of any collection billed in ‘volumes’ is a promise of more
likely to follow. We’ll see. Bottom line: a good, solid little movie with
lasting appeal, given short shrift by Uni’s lack of vision, time and money not
spent to make it perfect on home video. For shame!
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
2
EXTRAS
1
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