MCA/UNIVERSAL RELEASES 4 FILMS THAT SHOWCASE DEANNA DURBIN

Four of Deanna Durbin's early films - unfortunately, there are no late ones - have been released in MCA/Universal Home Video's "The Deanna Durbin Collection." It is the first time any of Durbin's films have been made available for general purchase.

One of the four videos, "Three Smart Girls," was Durbin's film debut in 1936. The ebullient Canadian teenager won the hearts of film fans worldwide.Two years later, in 1938, Durbin was presented a Special Academy Award inscribed: "For bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth." Judy Garland won the award the next year. Shirley Temple got the first one in 1934.

The other three films in this release are "100 Men and a Girl," "Three Smart Girls Grow Up" and "It Started With Eve." All are black-and-white films and are listed at $19.98.

Durbin retired early from her career to marry and now makes her home in the south of France. In 1959, in one of her rare interviews, she said of her film career, "Just as a Hollywood pin-up represents sex to a dissatisfied erotic, so I represented the ideal daughter millions of fathers and mothers wished they had."

Durbin's other popular films include "Mad About Music, "Spring Parade," "That Certain Age," "The Amazing Mrs. Holliday," "Can't Help Singing," "Lady on a Train" and "Because of Him." None are available on video, however.

About the four films in this collection:

- "Three Smart Girls" (1936, 84 mins.) Nan Grey and Barbara Read co-star as Durbin sings "My Heart Is Singing" and "Someone to Care for Me." Charles Winninger plays the millionaire father whom the girls try to reunite with their mother, divorced a decade earlier.

- "100 Men and a Girl" (1937, 84 mins.) Deanna Durbin sings and famed conductor Leopold Stokowski conducts her through such operatic arias as Verdi's "Sempre Libre." Charles Previn wrote the Oscar-winning score, which features the lyrical purity of Durbin's fresh young voice. Adolphe Menjou, Alice Brady, Mischa Auer and Billy Gilbert co-star. Durbin also conducts Franz Liszt's "Second Hungarian Rhapsody."

- "Three Smart Girls Grow Up" (1939, 86 mins.) This time Durbin, the youngest of the three sisters, is determined to marry off her two older siblings. Robert Cummings and William Lundigan co-star.

- "It Started With Eve" (1941, 92 mins.) Durbin is a little older and growing into a sophisticated young woman in this comedy with Charles Laughton as a gravely ill millionaire and Robert Cummings as his son. In a mixup, Durbin so charms the old man while posing as his son's fiancee that he recovers his health, and bedlam ensues.