The smartest comedy since "Theodora Goes Wild," Universal's "Three Smart Girls" is a titillating tale of youthful love, parental love, and middle-age love. Starring a pleasant-looking, dimpled girl of fourteen, the picture moves swiftly and grandly to a fairy tale climax. Deanns Durbin is the most natural, unaffected child star that any Hollywood studio has turned out in several years. Her acting must satisfy even the very critical, although her singing occasionally lacks force.

The story in which Miss Durbin and her two sisters (in the film) figure is not unusual, but the clever way it is juggled and tossed to the audience disguises its age. Learning that their father is chasing and being chased by a blonde adventuress (Binnre Barnes) in New York, the three sisters, unbeknown to their broken-hearted, divorced mother, take ship for America to make a counter-attack against the "enemy." They gain their first point when "Penny" interrupts every attempt of their papa's "Precious" to talk at luncheon; later "Penny" drags her bed across the floor while the adventuress is singing (?) below, thus winning a second objective. "Precious" and her simpering mother (Alice Brady) try to persuade the easy-going father to ship his daughters back the next day, but so well do they succeed in obtaining his affection, that they stay and after considerable see-sawing of situation win the battle.

Mischa Auer, of apeman fame in "My Man Godfrey" gives a wonderful bit of entertainment as a drunken Austrian count.

In all, you'll like Deanna Durbin (you might even wish she were a little older), you'll probably cast approving glances at the unknown brunette who plays, her elder sister, and regret at the end that the picture has not just begun