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It Started with Eve

It Started with Eve (1941)

September. 26,1941
|
7.6
| Comedy Romance

A young man asks a hat check girl to pose as his fiancée in order to make his dying father's last moments happy. However, the old man's health takes a turn for the better and now his son doesn't know how to break the news that he's engaged to someone else, especially since his father is so taken with the impostor.

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Lovesusti
1941/09/26

The Worst Film Ever

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Glimmerubro
1941/09/27

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

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Erica Derrick
1941/09/28

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

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Bumpy Chip
1941/09/29

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

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dougandwin
1941/09/30

Some 60 years ago I first saw this Movie, and now seeing it again on TCM I must say it is a beautiful tribute to two wonderful stars in Deanna Durbin and Charles Laughton - a great idea at the time, and one which would have seemed ludicrous when first mooted. They play off each other beautifully, and it seems everyone else in it are a bit superfluous. My only complaint is Deanna never finished her version of "Going Home" which was extremely moving. The story does not really matter, but it is light and a bit of fun. If you do have time for the supporting cast, Robert Cummings is fine, Walter Catlett is good in what was probably one of his bigger roles, and everyone seems to be comfortable in their support. Old fashioned? Yes, but incomparable with anything of this genre today. A true really feel good experience.

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thomreid
1941/10/01

She was a great singer; and this film proves she was an engaging, charming actress as well. She more than holds her own with the incomparable Laughton (only 41 when he made this) and is paired very well with "Uncle" Bob Cummings (so well remembered for his 50s sitcom.)And there are some great supporting players on hand: Walter Catlett, Clara Blandick, Irving Bacon, etc. This is a winning combination film, somewhat derivative of others in the past, but fresh in many ways. One reviewer mentioned the set design and one wonders what it would have been like in color. The costumes are also pretty special.Deanna only made a handful of films, but this is one of the best. A real feel good time. Enjoy!

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Terrell-4
1941/10/02

Would anyone not take a bet that a 20-year-old young woman would be mincemeat if she tried to take a film away from the skilled and hammy hands of Charles Laughton, especially when Laughton, to modern eyes, looks suspiciously like he's playing Tim Conway playing one of Conway's old, tottering geezers? It Started With Eve, an attractive romantic comedy, stars Deanna Durbin, Robert Cummings and Charles Laughton. It was a shame Laughton wasn't a few years younger. He and Durbin turn out to be quite a pair, both of them adept at delivering smart lines, doing subtle double-takes or moving from subversive good cheer to tear-jerker moments of sincerity. They dominate the film and they do it as equals. Robert Cummings was a skilled light-weight lead. Here. as in so many of his films, he just doesn't have the leading-man gravitas to appear as anything but an earnest puppy. When he shares a scene with either Laughton or Durbin, he makes a pleasant second banana. It Started With Eve begins with Jonathan Reynolds (Laughton), a rich old tycoon, apparently on his death bed. When his son, Jonathan Junior (Cummings), comes rushing in from a trip to Mexico, old Jonathan asks to meet young Jonathan's new fiancé, who has come to New York with him, accompanied by her mother. Young Jonathan tries to contact his fiancé, can't reach her, and believing his father is now dying, happens upon Anne Terry (Durbin), a hat-check girl. He rushes Anne to the side of his father and introduces her as his fiancé. But the next day his father recovers. Now young Jonathan has his fiancé he can't let his father meet, and his father wants to keep seeing Anne, thinking she's the fiancé. The movie's an hour-and-a- half of mistaken identity and screw-ball encounters. Love finally wins out, but only after Laughton plays matchmaker and Durbin sings two or three songs. Along the way we have some clever lines ("The trouble with being sick is you have to associate with doctors!"), a good deal of skullduggery as Laughton contrives to smoke the cigars his doctor forbids him, and a fast pace set by director Henry Koster. Laughton, of course, overacts but gets away with it. He also has a comb-up hair style that, if he were a foot shorter, would let him pass for a munchkin. He does a lot of stooped-over shuffling, squinting from under his eye- brows, and little bits of business that we wind up hardly noticing when Durbin is around. She must have been quite a challenge for him. Durbin, at 20, is no longer the child star. She's well-nigh gorgeous, with a figure that could make staring illegal. She is natural and straight- forward, and completely self-assured. She's one of the few actresses who could get away with sniffing mightily or falling down next to a piano and make us smile just at her style. She was, in a word or two, sui generis. And for those who admire subversive scene-stealers, the movie has that master, Walter Catlett, playing Dr. Harvey. Catlett was in hundreds of films, usually playing blowhards or flustered shysters. He's a bit subdued here, but just the sound of his voice is enough to make me smile. The movie is a bit of froth, expertly served. If it's a little dated, well, so am I.

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lugonian
1941/10/03

IT STARTED WITH EVE (Universal, 1941), directed by Henry Koster, stars popular singer Deanna Durbin in one of her finest movie roles. Not quite a Biblical tale about Adam and Eve and the apple as the title might imply, nor is there any character in the story named Eve, but actually a comedy of errors in the screwball comedy tradition providing Durbin, still in her late teenage years, an opportunity in a more adult performance, with fine support by the diverse Charles Laughton in a character role that's both funny and touching, and Robert Cummings as a young man caught in the middle of a series of situations and having a difficult time coming up with a suitable explanations.The scenario revolves around Jonathan Reynolds (Charles Laughton) a middle-aged millionaire on his death bed whose final request is to meet the young lady engaged to his son, Johnny (Robert Cummings). To make his father's last days on Earth a pleasant one, Johnny rushes out into the rain to get his fiancé only to learn from the desk clerk that she and her mother are not available. Not wanting to waste any more valuable time, Johnny encounters a hat check girl (Deanna Durbin) and offers her $50 to return home with him and pose as his fiancée for about an hour. Explaining the circumstances at hand, she agrees. Masquerading as "Gloria Pennington," the girl, Anne Terry, meets the ailing Mr. Reynolds, who takes an immediate liking to her. After their union, the old man finds his son to be in good hands, and can now die in peace. The following morning, Jonathan miraculously recovers from his illness, gets out of bed demanding a large breakfast from his servants and for Johnny to bring "Gloria" back to visit with him. Complications ensue when Johnny not only has to locate Anne, who's about to take the next train back home to Shelbyville, Ohio, but to explain to the real Gloria (Margaret Tallichet) and her mother (Catherine Doucet), having returned from their trip, the situation that has occurred. Things become even more complex when Johnny tries to prevent his father from learning Anne not to be his fiancée, and keeping Anne from attending his father's dinner function where she wants to audition for his theatrical agent friends in hope to land a singing career.A highly enjoyable comedy with an original premise done at a leisurely pace with a couple of classical songs thrown in for good measure making use of Deanna Durbin's singing talent, including Peter Tchaikowsky's "The Tchaikowsky Waltz" and Antonin Dvorak's "Going Home." Supporting players consist of Guy Kibbee as Bishop Maxwell; Walter Catlett as Dr. Harvey, the nervous family physician; Dorothea Kent as Jackie Donovan, Anne's roommate; Clara Blandick as The Nurse; and comedian Mantan Moreland adding humor as the harassed train station baggage man.Obviously a high point in Durbin's career that did very well at box office, it's interesting to note that a fun movie such as this is not relatively better known. Durbin and Cummings do well in the roles that might have been tailer-made for Irene Dunne and Cary Grant for example. However, the characters of Anne Terry and Johnny Reynolds were obviously written for much younger performers as enacted by Durbin and Cummings.IT STARTED WITH EVE did play for a while on American Movie Classics (1992-93) about the same time it was distributed on video cassette by MCA Home Video. The Hans Kraly story was redone by Universal as I'D RATHER BE RICH (1964) featuring Sandra Dee, Robert Goulet and Maurice Chevalier, with a few alterations, but like the original, has been lost to cinema history, known mostly by film scholars and historians. Even with the original currently available on DVD and latter cable broadcast on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: December 30, 3013) might offer IT STARTED WITH EVE some new life to a new generation of movie lovers looking for something amusing, nostalgic as well as lighthearted entertainment by its three principal actors. (***1/2).

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