CATCH A CLASSIC
Deanna Durbin Double Feature TCM, beginning at 7 p.m.
Actress/singer Edna Mae Durbin, better known under her professional name of Deanna Durbin, is highlighted in tonight’s double feature on Turner Classic Movies.
The two titles represent bookends of Durbin’s feature film career, which started when she was a teenager in the late
1930s and concluded with her retirement before the age of 30 in the late ’40s. While relatively brief, her stint on the big screen in projects where she often displayed her lyric soprano-level singing skill was very popular and successful; she shared an Academy Juvenile Award with Mickey Rooney in 1939 (in part, per the Academy, for “bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth”) and is credited with saving Universal Studios from bankruptcy thanks to her work in movies like the Three Smart Girls franchise. Up first tonight is Mad About Music (pictured), a 1938 musical that was Durbin’s third feature film. Following that is the actress’s final film role before her retirement: For the Love of Mary (1948), a romantic comedy co-starring Edmond O’Brien. — Jeff Pfeiffer