Pages

Saturday, April 5, 2025

Deanna Durbin's Family Home in "Nice Girl?" (1941)


The Deanna Durbin movie Nice Girl? (1941), is set in the small fictional town of Stillwater, Connecticut. Professor Oliver Dana (Robert Benchley) lives there with his three daughters, Sylvia (Anne Gwynne), Jane (Durbin), and Nancy (Ann Gillis), as well as their housekeeper Cora (Helen Broderick). Professor Dana is the principal of the local high school and is also writing a book on diet. They live in a charming two-story home with a large living and dining area, separated by three steps, a study, kitchen with back stairs, and four upstairs bedrooms, one of which has a nice balcony area. 

Porch

Note that you can see straight through to the dining area.


Note the turn at the top of the stairs.

Front Room

What the front door looks like from the inside.

A wide shot of the front room to get your bearings. Note how there's an open area above the stairs that extends to the front door. You would be standing in the fireplace to get this view lol.

This would be your view from the bottom of the stairs. Note the bay window.

Going clockwise around the room from the front door.

The fireplace. I love the curved ceiling that creates its' own area with the built-in seats on either side.

As we continue around the room we glimpse the dining area on the right.



Deanna crossing in front of the dining area.

Here's the view of the living area from the back wall of the dining area. Deanna has her hand on the kitchen door.

A clearer view of the two areas from the back wall. Three steps separate the rooms. Note the window above the front door.

Back to the living area to get our bearings. We shall now go counter-clockwise!

A glimpse of the...

Dining Room

Absolutely gorgeous built-ins along this wall. The opposite side has a fireplace instead of a window.

The window as seen from the back wall. Deanna is looking into the study.

A peek into the study. The doors are at an angle.

Another look at the angled study door. The back wall has a large window and more built-ins. So much storage!!

The kitchen door is over Deanna's shoulder.

A glimpse of the fireplace behind Deanna.

This is the only straight-on view we get of the fireplace.

Another view from the dining room into the living area. We can glimpse another built-in china cabinet that would be to the left of the fireplace.

One more view.

Back to the study doors. Basically the room is shaped like a camera card with a corner missing lol

Study

Going clockwise around the study. Built in bookshelves and little drawers.

A clearer view. Lots of paneling.

A fireplace (desk in foreground) comes next followed by...

...more bookshelves. There's alittle window in the corner and then a larger window to the right of it. A better view of the desk. 

Going back to that window. There's a small window seat and a back door. 

We don't see the other two walls but there's a shot where the camera pulled back and you can see there's a window behind the desk (on the wall opposite the fireplace).

Let's see what's out the back door...

The other side of the window with the window seat.

And up to...

A small balcony outside the girl's room at the back of the house.

And now back to the dining area to get our bearings (note the round swinging door) and into the...

Kitchen

The other side of the swinging door with a refrigerator to the left and a small counter area to the left.

Continuing clockwise. This view would be from against the wall. There is no window (they briefly showed Deanna walking around the house outside and the wall was covered with vines).

The oven/range and the back stairs. Behind the stairs would be built in corner seat next to the front room fireplace.


As we continue around the room we see the sink and more counter-space. 


Another view of the sink area. 

The kitchen door with coat-hooks to the right of it. 

A close-up of the door.

A tiny, covered area just outside. Looks like there is a covered porch behind the front room fireplace. It wraps around to the front of the house (see picture at the very top of the post).

Stairs

Note the snug window seat in the corner.


Upstairs Hall

The top of the stairs is to the left where the sunshine is streaming in. The youngest daughter is coming out of her father's room.

The two doors on the right are the girl's rooms. They are joined by another door between them. And don't forget the balcony! I did not take screenshots of them but if you google the movie you can see some pictures. There are a couple of nice pictures here. Note how the tops of the doors are all curved. There is another door on the opposite wall (to the left of the plant). My guess would be the bathroom.

Here's the dad going into the bedroom right next to his. You can see that bathroom (?) door behind him. On the wall to the right is a window that looks over the front yard. I'm having trouble making the upstairs line up correctly with the downstairs, nothing unusual in a movie house. 

And here's the door between the two rooms. 

And then, because I don't know how to end this post (there's no trailer on YouTube to insert), here's a cute picture of Robert Stack listening to Deanna sing to the troops :)