Songs: "Love At Last" (Durbin),by Eddie Cherkose and Jacques Press; "Perhaps" (Durbin),by Aldo Franchetti and Andreas De Segurola; "Beneath the Lights of Home" (Durbin, reprised Durbin),by Bernie Grossman and Walter Jurmann; "Thank You America" (Durbin),by Bernie Grossman and Walter Jurmann; "There'll Always Be an England" (Durbin); "The Old Folks At Home" (Durbin and chorus),by Stephen Foster; "Love Me and the World Is Mine" (Durbin and Benchley),by Ernest R. Ball and David Reed, Jr. Music orchestrated by Frank Skinner and directed by Charles Previn. Vocal coach: Andreas De Segurola.

Copyright 4 March 1941 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 26 March 1941. U.S. release: 21 February 1941. Australian release: 15 May 1941. 9,430 feet. 104 minutes. The full-length version was released only in Australia. The movie was cut to 95 minutes in the U.S.A.

SYNOPSIS: A nice young girl falls in love with a much older man and makes a few mild attempts to induce him to return her affection.

COMMENT: Even in the full-length Australian version which includes an additional Durbin song, Nice Girl? strikes me as a very routine offering. True Miss Durbin's admirers will be stimulated no end, but more critical entertainment seekers will most likely think they've been short-changed. The single-gimmick script is slight in the extreme and it is here spun out to wearisome length. The tedium is compounded no end by William A. Seiter's leadenly dull direction.

On the other hand, as there is really no question mark at all about Nice Girl's niceness, it is certainly a pleasant and amiable film, attractively played by the entire cast, and delightfully sung by Miss DD as well. True, it would be hard even for the heavy-footed Seiter to go too far wrong with players like Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Benchley and Helen Broderick. I certainly got a few laughs out of it. Despite some dated war-time jingoistic sentiments abetted by a "God Bless America" song, I found Nice Girl? overall quite acceptable entertainment.

Mechanic Robert Stack needed to jump start the plot of this initially creaky variation of "Four Daughters" which focuses on one (Deanna Durbin) of the three daughters of scientist Robert Benchley. Durbin is a fellow scientist who happens to sing soprano, and is upset that her boyfriend Stack is more interested in experimenting with shooting potatoes out of car mufflers than romancing her. When fellow scientist Franchot Tone comes to town to meet with Benchley, all three of the daughters set their caps for him, but it is Durbin who ends up in the ballpark with him by using him to get a reaction out of the non-romantic Stack. Durbin, it seems, is set on, as she says, not having an obituary which reads "Scientist, never married. Nice Girl." Get the drift? She is stranded overnight at Tone's mansion, and when he doesn't take advantage of her innocent pass, she storms out, offended. Back in her little home town, she becomes the victim of a prank by papa Benchley and mailman Walter Brennan who announce to a crowd of gossipy neighbors that Durbin and the wealthy Tone are engaged. Of course, Tone and Stack show up, and this sets the scene for the question mark at the end of the title.

With a romantic leading man like Robert Stack (too busy exploring those potatoes in mufflers rather than tomatoes in skirts),why Durbin would take notice of the rather long-in-the-tooth Franchot Tone is rather confusing. She of course gets to sing, but the songs are rather ordinary, more homespun and later patriotic considering the climate of the world in 1941. But Stack is rather unbelievable being cast as the young non-romantic fool more interested in mechanics than girls. In major supporting parts, Brennan and snappy Helen Broderick as Benchley's housekeeper, are extremely amusing. Broderick reminded me of Mary Wickes in the later Doris Day musicals "On Moonlight Bay" and "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" where her housekeeper was the Greek chorus commenting on everybody's comings and goings. Benchley basically plays the same character he played in all of those MGM shorts.

The whole premise of the title (with the question mark) is that Durbin wants to shake up her reputation, but she is simply too lovely to be believable as someone who fears she will end up as a spinster. She makes an effort to be funny, but unfortunately the script does not deliver in the laughs department unless Brennan, Broderick, and Benchley are on screen.

In 1941, Deanna Durbin was the biggest star at Universal and helped to save the sagging studio. However, this film represents a big of an awkward period. Up until this period, Deanna played young and virginal characters but by 1941, she was entering her 20s and having her play such roles was problematic to say the least! So, instead of a small change, the studio decided to try to titillate and named her next film "Nice Girl?" and they publicized that this sweet young lady would get her first screen kiss. Unfortunately, the film also is rather dull and when seen today it's not exactly a crowd pleaser.

The dull and slow-moving plot finds Mr. Oliver Dana (Robert Benchley) trying to raise his three daughters with the help of his housekeeper (Helen Broderick). The main focus is on Jane (Durbin) and whether or not she'll get the slow-witted Don (Robert Stack) or Richard Calvert (Franchot Tone). As for Don, he's much more interested in cars than sex and Richard is downright old compared to Deanna (he's 16 years her senior). It's all punctuated with Durban singing and ends with her singing a rousing patriotic tune--which varied depending on if you lived in the US or UK!

As I said...slow and dull. Not a bad film but one that never help my interest and was far from one of Durbin's best.