© 2026 The Couch Critic
Deanna Durbin shines in the Three Smart Girls trilogy, beginning with the 1936 original, in which she plays Penny Craig, a spirited teen who helps reunite her estranged parents. The 1939 sequel, Three Smart Girls Grow Up, follows Penny as she navigates her sisters' romantic troubles. In the final film, Hers to Hold (1943), Penny faces love and life during wartime. This charming series captures Durbin’s growth from a young starlet to a mature performer, blending humor, heart, and memorable music.
The three Craig sisters – Penny, Kay, and Joan – go to New York to stop their divorced father from marrying gold digger Donna Lyons and reunite him with their mother.
Three sisters who believe life is going to be easy, now that their parents are back together, until one sister falls in love with another's fiancé, and the youngest sister plays matchmaker.
Deanna Durbin is all grown up in Hers to Hold, the unofficial sequel to her "Three Smart Girls" films of the 1930s. Durbin plays Penelope Craig, the starry-eyed daughter of wealthy Judson and Dorothy Craig (Charles Winninger, Nella Walker). Developing a crush on much-older playboy Bill Morley (Joseph Cotton), Penelope stops at nothing to land the elusive Morley as her husband. Highlights include Durbin's renditions of "Begin the Beguine" and the "Seguidilla" from Carmen, and a captivating sequence that includes highlights from Durbin's earlier films, presented as home movies!