"First Love" is a slight reworking of the Cinderella tale--updated to 1939 and starring Deanna Durbin. As a Deanna Durbin film, you can be sure there is a lot of her singing. While Miss Durbin had an incredibly powerful and operatic voice, it is not at all the style I like nor would it appeal to a lot of folks today--though it made her immensely popular back in the day.
The film begins with the graduation of Connie (Durbin) from a girls school. Sadly, she has no family at the graduation--her parents are dead and her aunt, uncle and their family just doesn't want to be bothered. However, she is invited to come live with them. Once Connie arrives, she sees that her family is too self-absorbed to make her feel the least bit welcome. What's worse is that her vain cousin Barbara (Helen Parrish) feels threatened by Connie and does nothing but demean her. Fortunately, like Cinderella, Connie is so sweet that by the end of the film she gets her own happy ending. However, unlike Disney's Cinderella, Connie gets help from the nice servants that work for her aunt and uncle--not a bunch of cool animated mice!
This is a highly enjoyable film from start to finish. It did, however, feature a lot of singing--during which time I usually fast-forwarded the DVD! The ending also was a tiny bit weak but still enjoyable. Overall, this is fun--at least as much fun as the animated version. Plus the use of a lot of wonderful supporting actors really helped as well as the film's nice sense of humor.
