One of the least regarded of these peripheral comic winners is Universal’s It Started with Eve, a box-office hit given little respect. Best known for Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931), Universal was rescued from its financial woes of the mid 1930s when producer Joe Pasternak, director Henry Koster, and plucky teen soprano Deanna Durbin collaborated on Three Smart Girls (1936), thus beginning this trio’s well-attended series of frothy musicals. Not only a smash hit, Three Smart Girls was a Best Picture Oscar nominee. It helped that Durbin—whose singing voice was clear and mature rather than shrill—was girl-next-door pretty and had a nonchalant flair for comedy. It Started with Eve was the sixth and final (and best) picture for the Pasternak-Koster-Durbin combo and, though it features three songs, it’s not a musical. Durbin was by now a young woman of 19, and the studio was hoping that the adult Durbin could sell as many tickets as the pubescent Durbin. It Started with Eve brought smiles and made money, surely, but it turned out to be a real sleeper. Aided immensely by the casting of esteemed Charles Laughton, it’s a smartly scripted, flawlessly cast, and enchantingly played comedy that continues to deliver enormous pleasure to those who discover it.

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
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