Good Evening Everyone…

Our next movie is It Started With Eve starring one of the brightest talents on the silver screen… Deanna Durbin.  She had an impressive list of credits to her name and this one ranks pretty high.  Even so, there is another actor who steals the show… Charles Laughton… the same fellow who uttered the words “Mr. Christian” in a manner and style that still echoes through the halls of film history.  In It Started With Eve he displays a talent for comedy and is a sheer delight to watch.  The third figure in this tale is one played by Robert Cummings who plays a fellow thoroughly lost, confused, and out of control with his  eventual destiny.

“Durbin plays Anne Terry, a hat check girl trying to make it as a classical singer. One night, she is drafted by Johnny Reynolds Jr. (Cummings) who believes his father (Laughton) is dying. His father has insisted on meeting his fiancée, but when Johnny returns to the hotel to find her, she and her mother aren’t in their room. Desperate, he offers Anne money if she will pose as his fiancée. Anne wants to return home to her family, so the money will come in handy. She accompanies him to his father’s deathbed.”  What follows is simply a delightful comedy together with two musical songs featuring Deanna’s marvelous voice.

Deanna’s films saved Universal studios from bankruptcy.  For over a decade she remained one of the most popular stars in Hollywood.  Then, at the age of 26, she suddenly retired, married a French film director, and moved to France where she and her husband lived on a farm the rest of their lives.  But she did leave a legacy of outstanding films and It Started With Eve is certainly one of them.

It Started With Eve will screen on Friday, April 15th at 7 PM at Old City Hall.  Doors open at 6:30.

We’ll also have a short tribute to Ruby Keeler together with our cartoon.

Hope you can make it.

Paul Becker