War Babies

[I saw this movie once late on a public tv station, so I don't know if it's on video or not.]

This is one of the "Baby Burlesks" (sic) that Shirley Temple did in the early 1930s. It is hard to believe that anyone would let their daughter be in this racy little film which today might just be considered this side of "kiddie porn".

Shirley Temple stars in a cast which probably has an average age of 5. They are all in diapers, and are in a saloon which serves milk instead of alcohol. The "cash" is in the form of lollipops.

Shirley playing a "femme fatale" sashays up to the bar and talks to soldiers who make suggestive comments about her (!). But Shirley doesn't need really their lollipops/cash because her purse is full of ones from other "men".

Meanwhile a little black boy does a suggestive dance on a nearby table (!).

What a strange film . . . infants using racy dialogue playing adult roles in a saloon. Who thought up this stuff any way?

I remember my grandmother giving me this tape when I was a child, because she was going to throw it away. It contained Dora's Dunking Donuts and War Babies. Thinking back, I had to take the tape with me, whenever I spent the night at a friend's or a relative's. My favorite scene in War Babies was with the dog. Shirley Temple's character marches up to the dog, who in turn, barks at her. She runs back to the little boy and says, "I'm afraid!" And when another little boy goes to chase the dog away, the dog ends up chasing him out, but returns with the child's diaper. This tape has been passed back and forth between me and my sister over the years. I recently came across it in a storage box in my closet and gave it to my sister to keep.

Although Shirley Temple's obvious charisma is hard to miss in this film, War Babies borders a bit on the suggestive. The people who would put their kids in this film remind me of the parents of Jon Benet Ramsey.

In a kiddie satire on What Prie Glory, Shirley Temple plays Charmaine the French girl fought over by Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt as a pair of boy toddlers take over those roles. It's cute, but it kind of borders on the creepy.

Definitely one for her still active legion of fans, but not one to my taste at all.

I love these "Diaper Baby" movies! You couldn't make a movie like this today and it is rich in cinematic history. It is goofy and the film was made to make you laugh, which it does. How they ever got these kids to "act" I'll never know. I think they are precious and the kids make me laugh but so do the others who made this movie as it shows the naiveté that existed in the early 30's. You have to remember that this is when the film industry was very young, the stock market had crashed, the world wide depression was beginning and these films were made to give a person a break from the real world. The fact that you could see movies for five cents is beyond my comprehension, but then dinner for 25 cents is too. It was a different time with a totally different mind set.

Okay, Shirley Temple plays a singer in this film short during wartime. Her skirt is ultra short and inappropriate now and wonder why the censors didn't notice it then. Also, the boys are supposed to be soldiers but they don't wear shirts. I know they're supposed to act like adults as children but I felt uncomfortable seeing the children exposed in an unhealthy manner. The boys and girls acted like adults even though they were small children but still I can't believe that the censors allowed the children to be dressed in such a manner to expose them to the world audience. Maybe they didn't notice it then about the negative reaction, I know I would never allow my son to go shirtless at a young age or my daughter to wear a short skirt to the thigh. I was a little disturbed by it all and I'm glad that it's not aired on television anymore.