Three Smart Girls Grow Up

Penny, youngest of three sisters, sets out to arrange her sisters' love lives. One is engaged, the other is secretly in love with the same man, and nobody tells anyone the truth. The harder Penny tries to fix it, the more tangled it gets. The film is not interested in romantic misunderstanding. It is interested in a younger sister running the household: Penny says everything the adults cannot, and the film puts that nerve at its centre. The father is the last to learn anything. The form is studio family comedy: large drawing rooms, scenes at the piano, songs and a tidy resolution. Short running time, high tempo. Henry Koster directed. It is the sequel to Three Smart Girls and one of the run of films he and Deanna Durbin made for Universal. That series kept the studio financially alive. Deanna Durbin plays Penny, Charles Winninger the father and Nan Grey the elder sister. Who it is for: viewers who like classical studio family comedy and Durbin's singing. Who it is not for: anyone who has not seen the first film. The characters continue without introduction and the story runs an entirely predictable course.