IT'S A DATE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 51, 14 June 1940, Page 30

IT'S A DATE

(Universal) Deanna Durbin continues with her very pleasant process of growing uppleasant, that is, for the audience, but not quite so pleasant for Miss. Durbin’s screen self, who this time adds to the pangs of unrequited juvenile love a conflict of the soul between loyalty and ambition. But Miss Durbin’s essay into the more adult emotions is handled with the same felicity as any of her earlier efforts, Deanna is now past the puppy stage. In "It's a Date" she is no longer a moon-struck schoolgirl but a_ self-pos-sessed young person, rising 18, who is self-possessed enough to give her widowed mother (Kay Francis) some qualms when she determinedly sets her cap at an attractive bachelor (Walter Pidgeon) who is at least twice her age. . For the benefit of Deanna’s admirers who may deplore such romantic pre-

cociousness, it should be explained that it is largely cub-reaction; for Deanna, having taken the path of self-sacrifice when she and her mother both covet the same leading role in a play, decides that the path might as well end at the altar as soon as possible. Farewell the footlights! Welcome domesticity! Unfortunately, mother gets in the way again. Deanna’s choice for husband takes one look at mother and thereafter cannot regard Deanna as anything but a prospective step-daughter. It is a bitter cup for. Miss Eighteen, yet there are compensations. Mother takes the man, but daughter takes the stage, in the coveted role which she had so nobly renounced. "It’s a Date" is a very acceptable mixture of song, sentiment and comedy, So long as they can keep Deanna’s pic tures growing up with her like this, she should remain Universal’s greatest single asset. The only false note in this film is its title. Presumably they called it : "It’s a Date" in order to inspire .the advertising boys to write copy about making a date for Deanna’s latest and greatest, etc., etc. I can think of no other valid reason,