Baby Take a Bow

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.

When I got this film from Netflix, it said that this film was Shirley's first starring full-length film. However, I noticed that "Stand Up and Cheer!" and "Stand Up and Cheer" (among others) came out a month earlier. In fact, about a half dozen Temple films all came out about that time. Perhaps they meant the first full-length film where she received top-billing--which is the case with "Baby Take a Bow".

The film begins with Eddie (James Dunn) getting out of prison and marrying his girlfriend, Kay (Claire Trevor). He then gets a job working as a chauffeur and several years pass. Now they STILL are amazingly happy and have the world's most perfect child, Shirley (Shirley Temple). But, into their idyllic world comes a serious problem--there is a jewel robbery and when their employer finds out that Eddie and his friend, Larry, both had been to prison, they are fired. A dogged cop, Welch, is convinced one or both of these men did it and he spends the rest of the film trying to return them to Sing Sing. Are they innocent? And, if so, who did it and how will they prove it? And, more importantly, will little Shirley's heart be broken?!

The film has a couple minor problems--though neither harms the film significantly. Welch is a bit one-dimensional and annoying--perhaps too annoying. Also, there is a song near the beginning that Shirley and James Dunn sing--and it's so sickeningly sweet that diabetics in the audience are encouraged to stop the film to check their blood sugar! However, the film uses a young Shirley well. She is awfully young and so she is given a part that is mostly comic relief--and so the plot itself does not rest on her small shoulders--a good decision in hindsight. And, despite the schmaltz, the film is enjoyable and fun.

I love swimming around in these old movies. Very few of them are worth watching for themselves. But many of them have such strange narrative experiments. You just can't honk around today like this.

Here's what this is. It part prison picture in tone. Prison movies were a staple in that era because the system was considered to be inherently unjust, and good men could easily be sent to the bighouse, with cops usually depicted as incompetent or cruel.

Its part adventure/comedy, with stolen jewels, hidden and with open slapstick toward the end.

And it partly a show movie with a song and dance number, apparently recreated from a previous film.

The film itself is dull and cheap, but the idea behind it is wild. A pudgy 5 year old can carry a film?

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This was my first attempt at watching a Shirley Temple movie, though this film was made before she really hit it big and therefore her screen time isn't as much as it would quickly become. The story instead centers on a likable ex-convict Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) who has harmless fun playing practical jokes on his friends and comes out of jail to marry a loyal woman (Claire Trevor). Six years later, the couple have young Shirley as their daughter and Eddie tries to hold a job. But a bitter and nasty private investigator (Alan Dinehart) is determined to do whatever it takes to ruin Ellison and send him back to the slammer again and tries to nail him for a theft he wasn't involved in. Here is where daddy's little girl helps her father out by trying to foil the real crook.

It's easy to sense the potential which shines off Shirley Temple during her scenes with Dunn and Trevor, and the precocious little charmer does delight with some mild dancing and her cutesy antics, but this film is reportedly not one of her best. It's lightweight stuff, though probably a feature that wouldn't be remembered at all today if not for the participation of Miss Temple. ** out of ****

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! (***)