Mad About Music *** (1938, Deanna Durbin, Herbert Marshall, Gail Patrick) – Classic Movie Review 9365

Director Norman Taurog’s 1938 Mad about Music stars Deanna Durbin as Gloria Harkinson, the sweet young girl who enlists a visiting nice chap English composer Richard Todd (Herbert Marshall) to play her pop when she is left alone at a girls’ Swiss finishing school by her mom (Gail Patrick).

Mad about Music is an amiable light comedy with three new songs with music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Harold Adamson, A Serenade to the Stars, Chapel Bells, and I Love to Whistle. Durbin also sings Ave Maria.

It is all very pleasant, and lifted by the delightful playing of Durbin and Marshall, even if he makes a belated entrance after half an hour.

Remake: The Toy Tiger (1956), with Jeff Chandler, Laraine Day and Tim Hovey.

Also in the cast are Arthur Treacher, Helen Parrish, Marcia Mae Jones, William Frawley, Jackie Moran, Marcia Mae Jones, Christian Rub, Charles Peck, Elizabeth Risdon, Nana Bryant, Joan Tree, Sid Grauman, Franklin Pangborn, Charles Judels, Bert Roach, Martha O’Driscoll and Cappy Barra’s Hamonica Band.

Mad about Music is directed by Norman Taurog, runs 98 minutes, is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by Bruce Manning and Felix Jackson, from an original story by Marcella Burke and Frederick Kohner, is shot in black and white by Joseph A Valentine, is produced by Joe Pasternak, is scored by Frank Skinner and Charles Previn, and designed by Jack Otterson, with music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Harold Adamson.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9365

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