'Hers to Hold' is not rated as highly as it should be because most people don't remember what the world was like in 1943. Hollywood was heavily involved in propaganda helping the war effort, and 'Hers to Hold' was one of the best home front propaganda efforts of the war. It opens in a blood bank at a time when many people were quite fearful of allowing someone to stick a needle in their arms and drain blood. Ten minutes into the movie Penny's mother calls Penny (Deanna) her 'brave darling' and Penny responds that giving blood is less trouble than a manicure.
The scene shifts to an aircraft manufacturing factory where most of the production workers are women, and most of the women have men in the service, thus emphasizing that women getting jobs will aid the war effort and help their guys overseas. Penny, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, decides that she is interested in Bill Morley (Joseph Cotten), an engineer at the factory, and gets a job there to be near him. We see that on the factory floor that there is no distinction between rich and poor, or even between Black and White (rather novel for that period). When Penny sings 'Begin the Beguine' (the finest vocal version that I have heard) during the lunch hour, everybody likes her and Bill Morley finds her.
Several days later comes the propaganda highlight of the film. Penny sings 'Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There' (the song that should have won the Best Song Academy Award), and the camera pans the worried faces of crowd. Shortly after lunch, one of the women gets a telegram telling her that her husband has been shot down and killed in action. No doubt, many in the 1943 audience gasped. More than 2,000 such telegrams were delivered on a average day, saying, 'The Secretary of War (the Navy) regrets to inform you that your husband (son, father) is missing (has been wounded, has been killed) in action'.
Panicked, Penny goes to her very powerful father and asks him to keep Bill from going into combat. Her father, played by Charles Winninger, ostensibly tells Penny that he can't do that, but he is in fact talking to all the women of America who have guys in the service. The comic actor Charles Winninger and the musical comedy actress Deanna Durbin put on great dramatic performances here, especially Durbin.
I think that this was Deanna's finest dramatic role, even better than "Christmas Holiday' that she liked so much. She was never more beautiful than in the scene at the beach.
The scene shifts to an aircraft manufacturing factory where most of the production workers are women, and most of the women have men in the service, thus emphasizing that women getting jobs will aid the war effort and help their guys overseas. Penny, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, decides that she is interested in Bill Morley (Joseph Cotten), an engineer at the factory, and gets a job there to be near him. We see that on the factory floor that there is no distinction between rich and poor, or even between Black and White (rather novel for that period). When Penny sings 'Begin the Beguine' (the finest vocal version that I have heard) during the lunch hour, everybody likes her and Bill Morley finds her.
Several days later comes the propaganda highlight of the film. Penny sings 'Say a Prayer for the Boys Over There' (the song that should have won the Best Song Academy Award), and the camera pans the worried faces of crowd. Shortly after lunch, one of the women gets a telegram telling her that her husband has been shot down and killed in action. No doubt, many in the 1943 audience gasped. More than 2,000 such telegrams were delivered on a average day, saying, 'The Secretary of War (the Navy) regrets to inform you that your husband (son, father) is missing (has been wounded, has been killed) in action'.
Panicked, Penny goes to her very powerful father and asks him to keep Bill from going into combat. Her father, played by Charles Winninger, ostensibly tells Penny that he can't do that, but he is in fact talking to all the women of America who have guys in the service. The comic actor Charles Winninger and the musical comedy actress Deanna Durbin put on great dramatic performances here, especially Durbin.
I think that this was Deanna's finest dramatic role, even better than "Christmas Holiday' that she liked so much. She was never more beautiful than in the scene at the beach.