What a lovely little comedy! Three sisters, Joan, Kay and Penny, live in Switzerland with their mother, who’s been divorced from their father for ten years. When they hear that their father may be getting remarried, the girls run off to New York in an attempt to stop the marriage and reunite their parents. With a little help, they concoct a zany plan to have a poor man steal away the gold-digging Miss Lyons from their father, but identities are mistaken and love stirs up where it wasn’t planned.
This is such a well worked comedy; it’s not over-the-top, not too much slapstick and is full of witty zingers and one-liners. The comedy works so well, partially because there is good chemistry between the actors. The three sisters fight and argue just like real sisters and can rally together just as well. Just as the title suggests, they’re smart. They think on their feet, stick to their plan as best they can and deliver some witty dialogue naturally.
My only complaint is the amount of pointless singing. Well, I guess the point was to show off the new talent, Deanna Durbin and her beautiful voice. Kudos to her, but she just slips a song in for the sake of taking up five minutes to sing. It completely puts the story on hold while the camera just watches her face sing. Had her songs even commented on the plot, I’d try to appreciate them more.
Besides the pointless singing, I truly enjoyed this film. There were some real duds in ’36, but this wasn’t one. Three Smart Girls is surprisingly funny without letting the romance ruin any of the fun. It’s short too (only 84 minutes) so there isn’t that fear of commitment, like you might get with The Great Zeigfeld.
“-Do you realize that I have guests downstairs, that Miss Lyons was singing? I thought the ceiling would come down!
– Why didn’t you stop her?”
The Best Picture Project 
I don’t think that’s true at all about Durbin’s singing in the picture. While the songs undoubtedly were included to provide Durbin a showcase for her remarkable soprano (with her spectacular debut and subsequent success on Eddie Cantor’s radio show in September ’36, TSGs had a ready made audience eager to see if Durbin looked as good as she sounded), there are only three songs in THREE SMART GIRLS and each one serves as more than a showcase for Durbin’s vocal talent. The first “My Heart Is Singing,” is not dissimilar to the staging of the title song in “The Sound of Music” with Durbin expressing in song the delight she and her sisters are sharing sailing on a Swiss lake. The second, “Someone To Care For Me,” serves to increase the growing attachment between Durbin’s youngest daughter and the father she can barely remember, and is very well staged in the middle of a scene in which the two older girls have reminded Dad Winninger of the “good times” he had with his kids. Even though the final song, “Il Bacio,” was not written for the film, it sets up an important element of Durbin’s image and later films: how her “Little Miss Fixit” character uses music and her singing to win sceptics and strangers over to her cause. This was all but unique in musical films of the period in which, for the most part, had “show biz” themes and put the star vocalist front and center to sing a song as an “audition” for a show or a tryout for a new lyric, etc. From TSGs on, Durbin’s films would use music as a means of defining the characters in her films: those who appreciated Durbin’s singing helped her to achieve her laudable goals, those who didn’t (and to Universal’s credit, it included characters who didn’t) were obstacles who were meant to be overcome. The success of TSGs provided the blueprint for this formula: a big part of Durbin’s subsequent success.
Wow, this comment is much appreciated, very informative. Obviously I’m not an expert on ’30’s musicals, just an average Joe film nut trying to review some classics for a 21st century audience. When Durbin took over 15 minutes in a 84 minute film to sing, the modernist in me realized that for most people it would be too much and cue to pop some corn. I’m honestly excited to see you’re so passionate about this film and Durbin. Thank you!