Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I only wanted to DVR and watch It's a Date because Cissy Loftus was in it. Cecilia "Cissy" Loftus was born in Scotland in 1876, and was a great star of music halls, vaudeville plus stages of London and Broadway. This was all before World War One. She was London's second Peter Pan in 1905 (you already know that I love everything Peter Pan). Cissy got married and had a child, and later a very painful divorce, and I imagine because of that and World War One her theatrical prospects may have all but dimmed out. She became alcoholic and drug-dependent, poor thing. This is all true. I still love her very much. As a theatrical and film historian, I have researched and seen pictures of her as a very young woman, and I think that she is very beautiful, both inside and out. She appeared in all kinds of plays and shows, plus silent films. Cissy made some sound films, including some near the end of her life, such as both 1940's It's a Date and The Blue Bird. She only made three films after these two, then passed away quite soon in 1943, of a heart attack from the effects of alcoholism and other drug use. My research says that she died in poverty, with friends paying her final expenses. Was she desperate for money when she made It's a Date? She was no longer an ingenue or a star, and her role in this film was as a wise, old granny/maid character who knitted in the background. Maybe she wanted Walter Pidgeon for herself, but she knew that character parts don't get hooked up with leading men. She was only about 64 when she made this film, but looked made up to be around 84, lol. Deanna: a better voice (beautiful high soprano) than Judy G. Prettier than Judy G., but IMO D. got thrown under the bus in order for Judy's career to flourish. IMO same for Shirley T. In all three cases, their careers fizzled out sooner or later. I also feel that the proverbial casting couch became the place to make or break their futures, and that some succumbed to it while others refused. I am speaking in code here (can you spell Hays Code?). You get my drift. Refuse, and your career is over. I loved all of Deanna's songs here. Yes, IMO her voice was so divine. Great to see all of her supporting cast. 10/10

Although I have known Deanna Durbin's name for a long time, I had never seen one of her movies. Then, recently I saw It Started with Eve and Lady on a Train and was amazed that there were black and white movies of this high quality that I had never seen. Today I saw It's a Date and stood and applauded for the last two minutes of the movie watching it alone. It would be impossible to describe all the brilliant touches in a few words but let's just say that in this movie Deanna Durbin plays an aspiring actress who not only vies with her actress mother (Kay Francis) for the same part but for the same man (Walter Pigeon). This kind of plot which is usually played out as an intense psycho/sexual drama is here played for laughs and is all the more delicious as the center of the sexual triangle between mother, daughter and lover is none other than Deanna Durbin, America's Sweetheart, who is barely ever shown kissing a man, but nonetheless in this movie is shown kissing a man twice her age who is in love with her mother. The movie is incredibly clever in both the screen writing and direction. Nothing is ever what it seems to be and the final incredible touch which brought me to my feet, applauding, was that in the last scene in a comedy fraught with underlying sexual tension, Deanna is shown on the stage in what was meant to be her mother's part, playing a NUN singing AVA MARIA, while her mother, now married to Deanna's former lover (Walter Pigeon), both watch adoringly from the audience. In fact, the mother is shown mouthing the words to Ava Maria which echoes the opening shot of the film which was of Deanna sitting in the audience mouthing the words to a song her actress mother was singing. Because it's a Deanna Durbin film, you can be fooled into thinking that this is a piece of B-movie fluff but the script and the direction equals anything Preston Sturges ever made and Preston Sturges made some great movies. It's a Date is a subtle, brilliant comedy of the first order.

I watched this to see Kay Francis, who was coming to the end of her career here. Both she and Walter Pigeon were billed below the title; Deanna Durbin was the star, the only person billed above the title.This was the seventh movie Deanna Durbin made with producer Joe Pasternak and cameraman Joseph Valentine, and the well was running dry. This drivel would give anyone with an IQ above 70 a raging headache--even in 1940. It's a trite tale of a mother (Francis) and daughter (Durbin) in love with the same man (Pigeon) as well as mother and daughter vying for the same leading role in a Broadway play. It's nonsense with neither an ounce of plausibility nor a single bit of wit, though it fancies itself a comedy. The very contrived plot is arranged to provide Durbin with a ridiculous assortment of songs: "Musetta's Waltz" from La Boheme, Schubert's "Ave Maria," "Loch Lomond," and a bland new ballad, "Love Is All." Kay Francis was looking quite fine here, though the costume designer should have been shot for giving her unflattering turban hats.This was the first American film that S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall appeared in, though he didn't have his nickname at that time. He was playing the sort of part here that he played throughout his Hollywood career.And the film reminded me of what an insipid actor Walter Pigeon was.

The tired old ploy of having mother and daughter compete for the same man, intentionally or not, is what is supposed to make 'It's A Date' a sparkling comedy. Although the script is by the talented Norman Krasna, it's not witty enough to make the long stretches between songs anything more than bearable. When Durbin does get a chance to sing, she's great. She puts over all of her songs with professional skill and poise, doing an absolute standout job on "Ave Maria" and "Musetta's Waltz"--but the trouble is not enough time is spent on the vocals to showcase her amazing voice. Instead, we get Kay Francis and Walter Pidgeon falling in love while Deanna dreams up all sorts of schemes to keep her mother from knowing that she has won her mother's role in a play. Deanna looks lovely at eighteen and has probably never been photographed more beautifully but this is the sort of vehicle that has you wishing the silly plot would move on so we can hear Durbin sing once more. Walter Pidgeon and Kay Francis are adequate in support. MGM later came up with a zestier technicolored remake called "Nancy Goes To Rio" with Jane Powell.Trivia note: This was S.Z. Sakall's first screen appearance in an American film.