One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) - full review!
Directed by Henry Koster (who would receive his only Academy recognition for directing The Bishop's Wife (1947)), this Hanns Kräly (The Patriot (1928)) story was adapted by Charles Kenyon, Bruce Manning, & James Mulhauser into a successful Deanna Durbin musical comedy that was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and won the Academy Award for its Score. Kräly’s Original Story, the film's Editing (Bernard Burton's only) and Sound Recording (Homer Tasker’s last) also received nominations.
Durbin plays Patricia Cardwell, the (sometimes overly) enthusiastic & optimistic daughter of "out of work" musician John Cardwell (Adolphe Menjou), who's unable to get in to see conductor Leopold Stokowski (playing himself) in order to audition for a job. After his latest failed attempt to get past the stage doorman (J. Scott Smart), Mr. Cardwell finds a bejeweled purse that's been dropped by one of the patrons and, unable to pay their rent to Mrs. Tyler (Alma Kruger), he keeps it and the money inside. When he pays her, she gets the impression that her border has finally found work, and so does his daughter. However, Patsy discovers this to be untrue and how her father got the money. Ashamed of him, she insists on returning the purse to its wealthy owner, who turns out to be Mrs. Frost (Alice Brady). In the film's best sequence, hungry Patsy settles the debt, charming Mrs. Frost & the others in attendance at her home & party in the process. She also entertains them with her magnificent voice (an uncredited Leonid Kinskey plays the piano) which leads to a confused conversation during which Patsy thinks she's gained Mrs. Frost's commitment to sponsor an orchestra provided Patsy can put it together. Aware of many others in the same position as her father, like their neighbor Michael Borodoff (Mischa Auer), Patsy knows just what to do. She tells her father and he's able to pull together one hundred unemployed musicians to form the orchestra. Meanwhile, Mrs. Frost has gone to Europe, which leaves Mr. Frost (Eugene Pallette) holding the bag.
Mr. Front is a businessman who gives to the arts because of his wife and has no real interest or care for the symphony anyway, so he certainly doesn't want to sponsor one. He goes to the garage (owned by Billy Gilbert's character) where the musicians are assembled to tell them he has no intention of footing the bill for an orchestra, especially one without a known conductor. This gives Patsy an idea - she takes a cab (owned by Frank Jenks’s character) to the concert hall where Stokowski is rehearsing his orchestra, intending on asking him to be their conductor. After dodging the doorman, she hides in the conductor's office where she answers the phone to keep someone else from discovering her and ends up telling the local newspaper's editor (Edwin Maxwell, uncredited) about her idea. He runs with it as if it's a true story. Shortly thereafter, she impresses Stokowski (and Jenks’s character) with her voice singing "Allelujah", but he already has an orchestra and his manager (Jameson Thomas, uncredited) says it's out of the question per his scheduled six months overseas tour in any case. John Hamilton (uncredited) plays the theater's manager; Christian Rub plays Gustave Brandstetter.
Once the phony story runs in the paper, Mr. Frost is naturally furious. However, when his friends (Jed Prouty & Howard Hickman) express that they'd wished it was their idea (e.g. for its good publicity), Mr. Frost decides to run with it himself, only to find that Stokowski’s not on-board after all. However, after her father sneaks his entire unemployed orchestra into Stokowski’s foyer to play for the conductor, he changes his mind. The final scene in the concert hall features Durbin singing Traviata, accompanied by the titled orchestra.
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