Ball for Cinderella

Memory of Dina Durbin

The death of Dina Durbin at the age of 91 could not but stir up the memories of people who watched her films and remember them. Here I must say that the least Dina Durbin was remembered in America. She shone on the screens of Hollywood in the late 30s and early 40s in musical movie comedies, who was then one of the leading Hollywood genres. This genre, as it seems to us, was very contributed to the release of the movie from that unexpected impasse in which its appearance on the sound screen led. The first sound films were a slave copy of the stage theatrical productions - the specificity of the movie disappeared, in which the main thing was movement. Then Hollywood came up with all sorts of musicals in which singing gave a natural motivation to the sound, and the dancing retained the main film appliance - a moving image. It is clear that such roles needed actors who could sing. And Dina Durbin already at the age of 13 marked a magnificent coloratural soprano. In addition, she possessed a very suitable appearance for this genre-a cute girl who was not a written beauty, but very charming and all liked: what Girl Next Door is called in America, a neighbor girl. And another circumstance was due to the noisy success of Dina Durbin: the thirties were in the United States a difficult time of great depression - people in the cinema wanted to forget, surrendered to the illusion of a light and beautiful life that Hollywood was able to create.

It is clear that Dina Durbin was not alone, then a lot of talented singers appeared a lot. Junet McDonald, who was paired with Nelson Eddie and Frenchman Maurice Shevalier, was more beautiful than everyone. Another discovery of those years is Judy Garland, which has become a cult figure not only of American cinema, but also of the entire American cultural life. Here she is well remembered and still ascended in every way. Quite often on television, old films with Janet McDonald are shown on television. But this cannot be said about Dina Durbin. For the whole time that I live in America, I saw only one of her film on TV - "It all started with Eve." And, by the way, she did not sing in this film; That is, I had to sing and sat down several times by the piano, taking the appropriate chords, but each time something interfered with its singing. It was a funny film reception, the viewer was as if teased; But it all ended well and Dina Durbin, even without singing, won the heart of a young rich heir.

This was the main, perhaps, even the only plot of Dina Durbin’s films. With its help, Hollywood developed the richest archetypal theme of Cinderella. The most withstanding Dina Durbin’s film was “the first ball” (as it was called in the Soviet box office, its original name “First Love”). Everything was from Cinderella-and an angry rich cousin, and an inappropriate of a poor relative to the ball, and the assistants-servants, including a driver and a policeman, who delivered her to this ball, and a fairy-tale prince, a young man, who was considered a bridegroom of a black cousin and, naturally, fell in love with a charming singer. There was even an escape from the ball during the assigned time and the loss of the design of the verbal shoe, according to which the same prince - the young man, naturally, from a rich family found his Cinderella. The final scene: Dina Durbin, who returned to his school, is already a teacher of singing, performs at the school concert Aria Chio-Chio-San, and her prince, actor Robert Stock, enters the hall, and Dina Durbin, with the last note of the Aria, runs through the whole hall towards him. Spectators wrinkle into handkerchiefs, and who does not have lootes - like most Soviet spectators who watched this film during the war, they simply cry. And these feelings are understandable and apologized: who does not like beautiful fairy tales?

And the Soviet spectators also had a reason to love Dina Durbin and be touched by her: in the film "The Pesh of his butler", she sang three Russian songs in Russian: "The gate", "Black Eyes" and "two guitars".

Of course, the Soviet spectators reaction to Dina Durbin was not quite the same as among the Americans: for Soviet people, the image of America, a fabulous country, and even during the war, during hunger and all kinds of absence, opened in these films. Undoubtedly, it was an inadequate image, idealized, designed in the Hollywood standards of "beautiful life". But the feelings of good to America awakened these films. And even more - amazement mixed with enthusiasm. I remember how in the same “first ball” an evil cousin, going to the ball, pushed the door of the wall cabinet, opening the picture of dozens of chic dresses. The hall gasped - and in this shock he was all the years of the subsequent Cold War. I testify with full knowledge: Soviet people did not have evil feelings for America then.

The film career Dina Durbin did not last long. When she came out of her age and the image of a charming teenager and she was tried in the roles of a dramatic plan, it did not go. But she was not sad: the money earned in the cinema allowed her to comfortably retire to France, where she bought Chateau and spent the whole subsequent long life.

Nevertheless, some bitter sediment remained: Dina Durbin refused to give an interview and generally remember the movie. In one of the rare performances in the press - in 1983 - she spoke very soberly about her film career. My peers, she said, was by no means my hot fans. My success could impress them, but not at all my film image. Who adored me is their parents. They saw in me the idealized image of their own children.

These are smart words of a reasonable woman, an experienced person. Dina Durbin lived a worthy life, which delivered not only to herself, but also millions of her spectators for many minutes of happiness.