#35: First Love

Starring: Deanna Durbin, Robert Stack
Dir: Henry Koster (1939)

**First in a series of DOUBLE-DUTY BLOG POSTINGS 

done by me and my associate Lexie A.!! She has a blog too. It's called "Muir, Muir on the Wall" 

and it isn't about movies, it's about John Muir 

(dude? outdoorsy dude? I know very little about him... big beard... Sierra Club. Yup). 

Check it out. 

BUT then come back here because along with John Muir she definitely loves Deanna Durbin, 

obv.**

Joey: Yay, DD! In First Love my beloved starlet braves the awkward terrain between adorable child star image and glamorous grown-up lady, and does so charmingly (minus an ill-advised hairdo and boobs that are too big for her body).
Deanna plays Connie Harding, an orphan who has been sponsored her whole life by a wealthy uncle from New York. When the story begins she is graduating from an all-girls high school and preparing to join her uncle's family in the city.

Lexie: BIG-O suuuurprise Uncle Rich-Man's family is SUPER lame and rude and horrible. LIKE THE EVIL SOCIALITE SUPER PRETTY LADY COUSIN/COCK BLOCK and her Mr. Cousin (WALTER) is KIND OF HILARIOUS because he is ridiculously tall and lazy. And always lays all stretched out on a chair getting in erryones way being a sassy (funny) JERK.

Joey: We kind of like Walter except for the part where he's not THIS GUY,

whom you are about to meet.
Well in a little bit because there is legwork inbetween. But now you have an INCENTIVE to keep paying attention. Let me just dangle him like a little carrot in front of you again.

Good.
Now follow me.

Basically we can skip a lot of the backstory if you understand that this movie is just "Cinderella 1939," and all the characters are pretty much what you expect. Servants are adorable little fat mice inexplicably devoted to only one person in the entire household -- the new girl they don't know at all! -- and stepsister is evil cockblocking bitch only kind of hot and you're a little bit jealous of her because she wakes up in the morning looking like this

 Lexie: ... BUT the little girl that they don't know at all SINGS LIKE AN ANGEL and you can't help but to LOVE HER. Especially when she is ridiculously nice even to her evil cousin woman. "OH HEY DEANNA. I woke up late now go to the stables and stop this dude I want to bang from going riding with my STUPID FRIENDS who I feel are competition. ALSO I DO ALWAYS WAKE UP LOOKING THIS GOOD." Deanna: "OOKAY COUSIN ANYTHING YOU SAY!!" scuttle scuttle scuttle....

Joey: Deanna gets to the country club and does some really resourceful and adorable rascally things to distract Hot Guy and lure Hot Guy's Horse off to one side so that Hot Guy can't join the riding party (so that Evil Cousin can finish powdering her nose and putting on her tragically unflattering jodhpurs and get her flat ass over there to do her own work or something for a change) which results in her falling around in the dirt and getting all messy -- which sucks because if there's one thing worse than, I don't know, peeing your pants, it's having dirt on your face IN FRONT OF A GUY -- but he's really nice about it and helps her get up and is like "Why are you luring my horse?" (inexplicable trust and forgiveness in spite of equine theft, this guy is totally lovable) and she is like "Oh... you're so nice... of course there is nothing self-interested about my detaining you for my horrible cousin but now that we're at it I can't help but notice YOUR ASS LOOKS GOOD IN HORSE PANTS."

 "And now I'm crying because I've never seen a bottom that beautiful before." (cries)

Lexie: Sooooo a little bit jump forwardy but hey y'all have seen Cinderella before so Miss D-Durby will narrate briefly what happens:
"OH hey there is a ball hosted by Mr. Hotty-Pants (not to be mistaken with hot pants) and BOO I can't go cause my cousin is STRAIGHT UP MEAN and OH HEY the servants have HELLA CONNECTIONS with the police --

"Six White Bikes" -- get it? Wah waaahhh.

and buy me a dress and NOW I CAN GO TO THE BALL and NO ONE WILL KNOW! But before that I am going to talk to myself in the mirror and try to buck up but Mirror Deanna is also KIND OF TERRIFYING and I may or may not be but am actually definitely not schizophrenic I swear..."

AND TADA SHE IS AT THE BALL and then does something REALLY REALLY AWKWARD... Like thinks that Hotty-Pant's dad is talking about her when he announces some countess opera singer who is at the party and did I mention that D-Durby SINGS LIKE A Gangster? Because she does...

Joey:

THE CROWD IS TRANSFIXED

AND SHE SINGS LIKE THIS

WHICH MAKES HIM LOOK AT HER LIKE THIS

AND THEN THEY DO THIS.

STOP.

ATTENTION!!

SERIOUSLY --

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME (or not in front of uber hot man meat stud men) because, on average, 100% of guys will NOT give you this face

when you sing a shrill Strauss waltz in a gaudy dress that is bad for your boobs and on top of everything else you have bangs in a little meringue-type foofy mound on top of your face.

Or maybe, you know, DO follow your heart and sing that song to that wealthy super-stud totally-not-a-virgin blonde hunk of a New York socialite because he might really turn out to have a heart of gold after all and prefer you to your spider-skank cousin and in the end he might just smile at you like a kind of dopey adorable Ken doll and you can be with him FOREVER doing this.

love connection

Lexie: So after this UBER HAPPINESS... Some other shit goes down... LIKE her evil Cousin suspects that  D-Durby made it to the ball and then rushes home and goes to confront her and then Deanna almost gets away with it but then gets found out... And so Evil Cousin tells her some lie about how the Ken Doll was lying to her and secretly making fun of her behind her back (SO SAD). So she runs away back to her old school and gets a job teaching people to sing like ANGELS and then gives a concert to a bunch of old maids to get ANOTHER BETTER job? Right Jo? Maybe I wrong... BUT her crazy "fairy godmother" headmistress woman PULLS SOME STRINGS and while she is singing at the concert she looks at the crazy old dame and OH EM GEE CRAZY LADY HAS BOTH OF THE SHOES of the pair that she LEFT AT THE BALL (WTF?!?! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!?)  And then she looks towards the door AND GUESS WHO IS THERE. I know... You don't even need to guess... BECAUSE YOU KNEW IN YOUR HEART LIKE I DID. AND THEN guess what happens...

Joey: They don't even kiss. The movie just fucking ends.

Stars: 4 of 5