Honeymoon

"Honeymoon" is a bad film. It's not terrible, but it is bad--mostly because the humor is very forced and the film seldom entertaining. More bluntly put, it tries way too hard to be kooky.

The film begins with an annoying young lady (Shirley Temple) coming to Mexico to marry a serviceman. However, through a long series of unbelievable and annoying situations (mostly caused by her), instead of the marriage coming off successfully, the diplomat who tries to help her (Franchot Tone) ends up getting in very hot water with everyone--particularly his fiancée who THINKS he's making time with this other woman.

The film is bad--mostly because the studio didn't seem to know what to do with Temple. While she possessed great talent, here they made her character really annoying and shrill--so much so that America's Sweetheart is now an annoying lady who seems to behave like a 14 year-old suffering through her first crush. She is supposed to be a woman...but rarely seems anything like one.

Frothy, bubbly romantic comedies are supposed to get off the ground and sail into the air with ease. No such luck with 'Honeymoon'. The whole story is a trivial bit of nonsense about a girl who elopes to Mexico City to find her serviceman husband and get married. When a vice consul attempts to help her, he gets caught in romantic complications of his own with a jealous fiance. And that's it.

The slim plot gets adequate performances from the three leads: Shirley Temple, Franchot Tone and Guy Madison. Madison is less wooden than usual and manages to add a likeable personality to his handsome good looks. Shirley pouts and speaks childishly of her love for him until she starts to fall for Tone. It's all very silly and quite predictable. All it does is pass the time in a modestly entertaining way but don't expect anything special. Shirley is even given a romantic ballad to sing but it doesn't sound like her own voice. Since this was made before Marni Nixon got busy, you have to wonder who it was.

Summing up: Passes the time pleasantly enough but worthwhile only for true Temple fans who want to see her as a pretty young woman.

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.

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.

This is an engaging little trifle, the kind of innocuous fluff that was a staple of the studios during the Golden Age.

Shirley Temple's films as a young adult are a mixed lot at best but this one does show off her genuine gift for comedy, certainly not as well as her next film The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer would but she does handle her role here with a deft touch. Made when she was just eighteen it also shows that as a young girl she was quite a lovely lass.

Franchot Tone, that marvelous actor so often ill used by Hollywood, brings his exasperated charm to bear on his role of a put upon diplomat trying to help out Shirley and the young and impossibly handsome Guy Madison. Speaking of Guy, his role of the frustrated prospective groom doesn't really require much of him but earnest attractiveness and he fills that well.

All in all silly and light as a feather this confection breaks absolutely no new ground but does showcase its stars to pleasing advantage. What more can you ask from a slight entertainment like this.