Since I’ve done away with posting the schedule ahead of time, I can now take the time to announce my Star for the month of February 2022: actress Deanna Durbin! So if you’re interested in joining in on the blogathon, here’s where you can sign up!

Table Of Contents

• My Own Feelings
• Roster For Blogathon

My Own Feelings On Deanna Durbin

For me, Deanna Durbin is a star that I’ve developed an interest in much more recently. I had at least heard of her, mainly because of the clips of her and Judy Garland singing together (from the 1936 MGM short Every Sunday) that were included in the first That’s Entertainment film, but that was my main exposure to her for a long time. Part of the problem for me is that she spent the vast majority of her career at Universal. For most of the time that I’ve been a fan of the classic musicals, I’ve mainly been interested in stars that worked at MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, RKO, 20th Century Fox and Columbia. But realistically, outside of comedy team Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, I hadn’t really seen too many films from Universal (outside of when other favorite stars were loaned out to the studio for a film or two). So I never really had much of a chance to think about her until Kino Lorber Studio Classics released their Deanna Durbin Collection: Volume 1 on Blu-ray in June 2020 (which included One Hundred Men And A Girl, Three Smart Girls Grow Up and It Started With Eve), which, as a set of musicals, appealed to me. However, it still took me until Christmas 2020 before I was able to get the set. As you can tell from my reviews of those three films, I took to them right off (particularly It Started With Eve). While I was disappointed to hear that that set (which was originally supposed to be the first of three 3-film sets from Kino) sold poorly enough that Kino decided not to do more, Universal themselves obliged me (and certainly other fans of hers, too) by releasing those dropped films themselves. So, having seen more, I still find myself enjoying these films! The biggest disappointment to me is just how much she has been forgotten by time (not helped by her leaving Hollywood in the late forties, generally keeping her life private and away from scandal, and living to an old age), so I figured it would be worthwhile to host this blogathon, and hopefully help bring her back into the spotlight! I know I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen, and I hope others will, too (and I also hope to learn about some of her films that I haven’t had the opportunity to see yet)!

Roster For The Deanna Durbin “Star Of The Month (February 2022)” Blogathon

Since this is obviously for next month’s blogathon on Deanna Durbin, then that’s all you need to worry about signing up for. As always, here are the rules that we are working with.

1. At this point, I am not putting any restrictions on topics related to the various stars, whether it be any of their films, or biographies, lists of favorites, etc.
2. These celebrations are intended as tributes to these stars, so I would ask that any participating posts be respectful of the stars themselves. Obviously, if you don’t care for that specific star, that would probably not be a good month to join in.
3. I’m requesting that all posts would be new material, and not any previously published ones.
4. As previously indicated, these celebrations of the stars and genres will last a whole month each, so you will have that whole month to work with. I myself will be publishing about four or five posts per month (depending on the number of Sundays and whether there are any recent disc releases that would fit the bill), so you can decide how many you want to do (within reason).
5. If you are interested in joining, I would certainly suggest you either comment on this post, email me at astairefan7@gmail.com, or, for the Facebook savvy, contact me at my FB page. And feel free to use the banners I have put together (I’m still unsure of how much space I will have to work with over time on pictures, so for now I am doing one each).

Thoughts From The Music(al) Man

• Can’t Help Singing (1944), Because Of Him (1946), Something In The Wind (1947) and For The Love Of Mary (1948)