‘Spring Parade’ From 1940: Springtime in Europe

Tiffany Brannan
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Spring is the most romantic season of the year, so it inspires poems, songs, paintings, and even movies. One springtime movie is “Spring Parade” from 1940, a Joe Pasternak musical starring Deanna Durbin. Set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1890s, it’s full of music, laughter, romance, and Old-World charm.

A Hungarian Girl

Ilonka Tolnay (Durbin) is a simple peasant girl from a Hungarian village. One spring day, she goes to the fair to sell her goat. While there, she’s told by a fortune teller that her future lies in Vienna, where she will marry an artist and a powerful man will help her. She scoffs at the predictions but ends up falling asleep on a haystack on a cart. When she wakes up, she realizes that she has traveled far from home and the cart is owned by a baker, Latislav Teschek (S.Z. Sakall), who lives in Vienna.
Deanna Durbin plays a Hungarian peasant girl who can really sing, in "Spring Parade." (Universal Pictures)
Deanna Durbin plays a Hungarian peasant girl who can really sing, in "Spring Parade." Universal Pictures
Tiffany Brannan
Tiffany Brannan
Author
Tiffany Brannan is a 23-year-old opera singer, Hollywood historian, vintage fashion enthusiast, and journalist. Her classic film journey started in 2016 when she and her sister started the Pure Entertainment Preservation Society to reform the arts by reinstating the Motion Picture Production Code. Tiffany launched Cinballera Entertainment in June 2023 to produce original performances which combine opera, ballet, and old films in historic SoCal venues. Having written for The Epoch Times since 2019, she became the host of a YouTube channel, The Epoch Insights, in June 2024.
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