Easily Deanna Durbin's best film since It Started with Eve - one of her strongest ever casts and scripts and while the genre is a little untypical she does it well.
You just wish it was better directed - Charles David does a workmanlike job but someone better could have made it sing. (David didn't do that much directing). He later married Durbin becoming her third and longest lasting husband - the producer Felix Jackson was her then husband so this must have been an interesting filming.
But he's got a good cinematographer, strong script, excellent cast and the support of a major studio.
After the last few films where Deanna chased after men or was passive it's great to see her with a specific goal here... investigating a murder which she witnessed that no one believes.
Durbin's specialty was playing sensible types so she's not entirely well cast - someone with a bit more ditzy-ness would've been more believable - but she is very winning. She's gorgeous, full of pluck and sings some songs... better known ones here including 'Silent Night' (oddly, to her unseen dad over the phone) and 'Night and Day'.
The support cast is a treat: Ralph Bellamy is excellent (scary at the end), Dan Duryea is always good, George Colouris, Allen Jenkins, Edward Everett Horton... I didn't mind David Bruce as the love interest - he's not as good as say Bob Cummings but it's a fun role, as a mystery writer roped in to help solve the crime, who spends a lot of time falling over, and stuffing up and it's to Bruce's credit that the character still has balls (it's great there's another girl interested in him - all Durbin films should have had this but surprisingly few didn't).
The first third of this I kept wishing David was a better director but the last two thirds it moved at a fair clip and got better and better. It was contrived all the stuff Durbin pretending to be a circus performer but I loved the scenes at the circus. There's movement and action and high spirits. It's one of Durbin's best films.
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