La p'tite Shirley

**Some Possible Spoliers**

It was 12pm in the afternoon, and the announcer happened to indicate that a film with Shirley Temple was to come up next. My mother told me to tape the film since she thought that any film with Shirley Temple is a sure winner.

I was reluctant, but once the film started going i was rather intrigued. The story is rather good, and the actors are not so bad. Yet the adult actors tend to be a little too rigid in some moments of the film.

Shirley has to be without a doubt, the person who steals the show in this movie. Being cute and full of charm, she has the potential to just blow other actors right off the screen.

Although sometimes you wish she hadn't done things, like cut Mr Stone loose, she still remains as the best actress on screen. The last scene of the film on the rooftop was a reassuring one. There was some pretty good acting by Claire Trevor (Kay) which made the scene believeable. And the ending was rather sweet and happy (predictable).

I really enjoyed watching this film, and the scene with the coffee pot and the beads always gets me nervous. Anyone who likes old fashioned comedy, you'll be in for a treat. Shirley's charm surely makes this film worth watching.

Rating: 8/10

Shirley Temple is wonderful. Beyond that, this is a movie that works on many levels for me. Claire Trevor brings an added dimension to the loyal wife and mother, and the ever-hard-luck-bitten James Dunn (A Tree Grows In Brooklyn) is perfect as the ex-con father trying desperately to put his past behind him. Alan Dinehart's slick and sycophantic private detective -- an embittered and opportunistic ex-cop -- does his best to pray on people's fears and keep Dunn with no recourse from the gutter. James Flavin, who later made a career playing Irish cops in the city, plays one here, albeit generally higher in rank and nobility than most of his later characters. Shirley only has two songs and one nice dance number with Dunn, but does more acting than musical work here, and is quite good at both. This is fine family entertainment amidst a backdrop of struggling to survive while the malicious and hypocritical try to keep others down. Certainly, although the movie was made in 1934, its themes are as resonant as ever.

Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) made a big mistake and ending up serving time in Sing Sing. However, his lovely fiancé, Kay (Claire Trevor) waits for him and even takes him to Niagara Falls to get married on the day he leaves prison. Now, six years later, they live in New York City with their little girl, Shirley (Shirley Temple). Eddie presently works as a chauffeur and even got his good buddy a job with the same company. But, a crooked insurance investigator is certain that Eddie will break the law again and he watches the home constantly. On the day of Shirley's birthday, Eddie and Shirley entertain guests with their jokes, songs, and dances. But, things get complicated when an old, thieving friend of Eddie's gives Shirley a "hot" pearl necklace. He does this to bring Eddie back into the criminal fold but Shirley thinks it is a birthday gift. A ton of confusion reigns soon after as Eddie tries to hide the necklace from the insurance man and Shirley believes it is all an elaborate game of hide and seek. Will Eddie get fingered? This is a fun movie with a few dark elements, surprising in a Temple film. Shirley is adorable, young and talented, displaying her amazing talents for comedy, song, and dance. Dunn, too, is a stitch as her joking father, who is trying his best to go straight, while Trevor is very beautiful and touching as the faithful wife and mother. All of the lesser actors fulfill their roles quite nicely, too. The colorized version I watched had nice sets, costumes, songs, plot elements, and direction. If you like light comedy and vaudeville-type song-and-stomp, this is a good choice for you. Although there is a touch of violence, the sunny nature of the main players and their antics make it almost a second cousin to a Marx Brothers flick. My recommendation is to take a dose of Shirley on a day without sunshine, you'll feel like new.

BABY TAKE A BOW (Fox, 1934), directed by Harry Lachman, with its backstage musical sounding title, is actually one taken from a production number introduced by James Dunn and Shirley Temple in STAND UP AND CHEER (1934). While it could have been a sort of sequel with Dunn and Temple reprising their original roles as Jimmy and Shirley Dugan, father and daughter song and dance team, in a story to what's become of them after making it big on Broadway, with the little girl taking all the bows while her father rests in the background, it's actually a dramatic story with some doses of humor thrown in, about reformed crooks going straight (filmed before as "Square Crooks" (Fox, 1928) starring Robert Armstrong, Dorothy Dwan and John Mack Brown). For Shirley Temple's first starring role at Fox, much of the plot revolves around future Academy Award winners James Dunn (Supporting actor for A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945) and Claire Trevor (supporting actress for KEY LARGO (1948), with Temple, as their petite daughter, around for moral support.

The ten minute prologue introduces Kay (Claire Trevor) at the train station heading for Ossining to meet with the man she's going to marry. Eddie Ellison (James Dunn), a former crook, having served time in Sing Sing Prison, is being paroled four months early for good behavior. Welch (Alan Dinehart), the special investigator who caused Eddie's conviction to get Kay for himself, has followed Kay to the prison. Upon their meeting, Kay makes plans for she and Eddie to marry and honeymoon at Niagara Falls. As Flannigan (James Flavin) arrives with Larry Scott (Ray Walker) to serve a five year stretch, Scott, who takes an immediate liking towards both Kay and Eddie, and dislike towards Welch, does Eddie a good turn by socking Welch. Six years later, Eddie is seen working as a chauffeur for the wealthy Joseph Carson (Richard Tucker). He succeeds getting Cason to hire his friend, Larry, now out on parole with plans of marrying Jane (Dorothy Libaire), though both keep their prison history a secret. Also released from Sing Sing is "Trigger" Stone (Ralf Harolde), who, unlike Eddie and Larry, has no intentions of reforming. Eddie and Kay, blessed with a daughter, Shirley (Shirley Temple), make preparations for her upcoming birthday party to take place on the rooftop of their tenement apartment building. Trigger, who has stolen a pearl heckles from the Carson home, gives it to Shirley, thinking it as her birthday present. Due to the robbery and the discovery of Eddie and Scott's prison records through Welch, Carson is forced to have dismiss them from his employ. Learning that Trigger is the culprit, Eddie and Larry have a hard time proving their innocence, especially with the heckles in their possession and Welch hot on their tail.

Not quite the formula Shirley Temple production, BABY TAKE A BOW, does offer her, in ballet dress, a song and dance number accompanied by James Dunn singing "On Account of I Love You" (by Buddy Green and Sammy Stept). A good song underscored during its opening and closing credits, but something that simply didn't catch on as did Temple's other hit songs of 1934, "Baby Take a Bow" and "On the Good Ship Lollipop." Temple and Dunn registered so well together that they were reunited for the last time in their best collaboration, BRIGHT EYES (1934). Others in the cast include Olive Tell (Mrs. Carson); Samuel S. Hinds (The Warden); Mary Gordon (Mrs. O'Brien); and Guy Usher (McLane, Captain of Detectives).

1934 was a busy year for Shirley Temple, having more film releases than any other year. As for BABY TAKE A BOW, it has become unfamiliar and least known to modern audiences due to its unavailability, having never become part of the "Shirley Temple Theater/ Playhouse" on commercial television during the 1960s and 70s. Not until the mid to late 1980s has BABY TAKE A BOW surfaced, becoming a welcome addition to the Shirley Temple/20th Fox movies placed on cassette by Playhouse Video and distribution on cable television (Disney Channel (early 1990s), American Movie Classics (1996-2001), Fox Movie Channel) and later on DVD either in colorized or original black and white formats.

Regardless of BABY TAKE A BOW's reputation as being one of Temple's lesser efforts, due to plot focusing more on adults (especially the annoying Dinehart) than to her character, along with some gun battles not used in her latter films, overall, a welcome addition plus a look back into the early career of the biggest, littlest star, Shirley Temple. Baby, take a bow! (***)

If this is not considered one of Shirley Temple's more popular movies, it's easy to understand why.

First, she isn't the main attraction. James Dunn and Claire Trevor are the stars. This was Temple's first feature film but she was the third, fourth or even fifth person in here, screen time-wise. The powers-that-be must have seen the bright future she had, though, and made two more films with her in the same year (1934), beginning with "Bright Eyes," and she never looked back, becoming a huge box-office attraction on her own. This particular film featured a lot more drama and crime element and that was no longer to be, too, as light-hearted singing and dancing was the ticket...not this sort of fare.

"This sort of fare" meant a climactic scene in which Shirley is kidnapped, carried to a rooftop kicking and screaming for help while her father is pursuing and her mother is frantically looking on, screaming herself. Hey, that's not a "Shirley Temple film" as we know it.

That doesn't mean this movie is all dark or doesn't offer some typically-cute Temple moments: it does. There is a great song-and-dance number with Dunn, who was good singer in his own right, and a solo earlier in the film. However, the rest is drama about Dunn and his pal trying to go straight after a prison sentence and a few guys who don't want to see that or believe it. Overall, it's a fairly interesting movie, although very dated in spots, but it's not the kind of thing Temple fans are accustomed to seeing....so be forewarned, if you haven't seen this.