Honeymoon

Franchot Tone is an American diplomatic officer in Mexico City. He's engaged to Linay Romay and has a bright future ahead of him. Then Shirley Temple shows up. She's supposed to marry Guy Madison, a corporal on leave from the Canal Zone. Only he's nowhere to be found.

Various things happen, including contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and Miss Temple will inevitably fall in love with Tone. This movie flopped hard, and there are several obvious reasons, beginning with Tone. He was stuck in this sort of role at the time, cast as the young man on the rise in his forties, exuding a slightly bewildered air proclaiming he should be doing Chekhov, not this tripe. Edward Cronjager seems at a loss as to how to photograph Miss Temple. Sometimes she looks 12, not yet grown out of her baby fat, and sometimes she looks a pretty young woman in her 20s. Also, she's playing a woolly-minded flibbbertigibbet, always changing her mind, and it's not really attractive.

One player who's spot on is Miss Romay as Tone's fiancee. She knew how diplomats and the people around them acted because she was the daughter of a diplomat, a Mexican consular attache in Los Angeles. With the right connections and talents, she became a singer in Xavier Cugat's band and married into the wealthy Gould family. She died in 2010 at the age of 91.

I never was much of a Shirley Temple fan; personally, I always thought she came across as sugary sweet and precocious as a child. In Honeymoon, she's twenty, and playing Barbara, meeting her fiance in Mexico City. Guy Madison is Corporal Vaughn, but they miss each other at the station. and along comes american consul Flanner (Franchot Tone) to help out. Although each time he "helps out", it seems to cause more trouble. and of course, everyone else is determined to mis-understand every move they make! studio regulars Gene Lockhart and Grant Mitchell are here in supporting roles. not to mention the uncredited cast of thousands. For a consul, no-one seems to respect Flanner, and he never seems to mention it, when people question his motives. I guess you have to buy into all the silliness. and clearly this was all done on the hollywood production lot. oddly, Tone made another film called "Lost Honeymoon" the very same year. he made so many films dealing with marriage and goofed up relationships. This one gets pretty silly, with slapstick humor and so many misunderstandings, it could be an episode of Three's Company, for those old enough to remember. More interesting as a historical highlight for Temple and Tone than for the story itself.

Barbara Olmstead (Shirley Temple) arrives in Mexico City hoping to marry her American GI boyfriend Phil (Guy Madison). He's late coming from the Panama Canal and there are the bureaucratic red tapes. US Embassy Vice Consul David Flanner (Franchot Tone) tries to help her, but that seems to elicit gossip. Nevertheless, he insists on accompanying her and she keeps mistaking every other GI for Phil.

The movie should start with Barbara and Phil together. They really need the time to build more chemistry. They are stiff as a couple. The situation is funniest when the young couple keeps budding into David's life to get help. His frustration is mildly humorous. Maybe Barbara and Phil should be dumb and dumber. That would probably work best for a comedy.

Pretty teenager Shirley Temple (as Barbara Olmstead) arrives in Mexico City, where she is to marry handsome young Guy Madison (as Phil Vaughn). At the station, Ms. Temple reads a "Mexican Guide" which explains, "In Mexico almost everyone speaks Spanish," and advises her tipping is "not in vogue." After absorbing this helpful information, Temple learns Mr. Madison's flight has been delayed, from suave American consul Franchot Tone (as David Flanner). Madison arrives, and begins looking for Temple.

Meanwhile, Temple has forgotten to eat. She faints from hunger, and is rescued by Mr. Tone. After he feeds her, Temple finds herself oddly attracted to the "old-fashioned" older Tone, calling him the "Walter Pidgeon type." Then, they jitterbug.

The film continues to tease you about a sexual attraction between Temple and Tone. All along, you're fairly certain she will marry Madison. Confusion and misunderstanding between the threesome tries to make you laugh out loud. At best, the film filled theaters with a few tepid chuckles. The plot supposes Temple falls in love by landing on her man in a swimming pool. This is how she relates meeting Madison; the film's climax occurs when Temple, in a very modest two-piece, has a similar encounter with Tone.

*** Honeymoon (5/17/47) William Keighley ~ Shirley Temple, Franchot Tone, Guy Madison, Lina Romay

Very cute movie! Movies that are this simple are very comforting. Life and people should be this simple, where a clunk on the head is all it takes to realize true love. There's something very blissful about the simplicity in that. Most people try to complicate everything, but these old movies were known for being comforting, because I guess they largely didn't try to complicate anything. Bread and butter kind of film.

And while it does have a lot of wacky trouble throughout, it all culminates to a very beautiful speech given by the older man in the film, summarizing perfectly, how older people wish to get back to youth , and the youth wish to rush to maturity. It is a bittersweet monologue on how there really is no perfect point in time, except where we are at the moment. True perfection is to live blissfully in the moment.

Wow, who would've thought such a simple kind of slapstick romcom could hold such a valuable life lesson?! As I've said before, there really is no such thing as a bad golden age of Hollywood movie. This is proof - being one of them that has been labeled with the BAD title- how good it actually is! If this is what constitutes a bad movie by old Hollywood standards, then what does that say about today's new movie standards?! Seriously!

On another note, Shirley Temple is so beautiful in this film! Yes, there is beauty in every age, but looking at her perfect features, unmarred by the wrinkles of time, I admit it does make me wish that at least those of us of the fair sex could stay perpetually maiden like.

Anyway, good film! Very good film.