A Kiss for Corliss

With the failure Bonnie Prince Charlie to reestablish David Niven as a box office star, that began a period for several years where Niven was scrambling for work. It's why he appears essentially as a guest star in a big screen version of the Meet Corliss Archer radio series, A Kiss For Corliss.

Shirley Temple is the star and this is the second time she appears as the eternally innocent Brooklyn bobbysoxer, she did Kiss And Tell four years earlier. Fans of the radio show probably were disappointed.

Temple's father is Tom Tully who is a lawyer and representing the third wife of playboy David Niven in a divorce suit. His daughter is having her usual troubles with her boy next door boyfriend Darryl Hickman. In a Lucy Ricardo type scheme she fakes a diary where says she's involved with Niven. The 'diary' falls into the wrong hands and Niven almost winds up marry Temple. I suppose that was better than That Hagen Girl where Ronald Reagan actually does marry Shirley Temple.

This is a most unfunny comedy. Niven looks embarrassed to be appearing in this. But he was a recent widower with two small sons and declining box office. He appeared in a few films like this in secondary roles to support his family.

Shirley Temple would also quit the movies after A Kiss For Corliss. No one in this film comes out with any career enhancement.

A Kiss for Corliss is a sequel to 1945's Kiss and Tell, but if you missed that one, you won't be lost. There's only one mention to the previous film, a few cast members were even replaced with no explanation, and the main crux of the first one was expected to be conveniently forgotten about by the audience. Still, Kiss and Tell is infinitely better than the sequel, so I recommend you watch that one instead.

Shirley Temple, a senior in high school, is still a troublemaker and enjoys manipulating her on-again, off-again boyfriend Darryl Hickman, who lives next door. Her father, Tom Tully, is a lawyer who's representing David Niven's soon-to-be third ex-wife. Shirley accidentally meets The Niv in her father's office and practically swoons, overwhelmed by his magnetism. Obviously; it is David Niven! In her diary, Shirley writes some incriminating fictitious romantic passages about Niven, hoping her boyfriend will read it and get jealous-but what happens when her parents read it instead?

It's a very hilarious set-up, but unfortunately, it winds up being very silly. Kiss and Tell was adorable and hilarious, but only a few scenes in A Kiss for Corliss were that way. It felt like Shirley had hurt feelings about her poor reviews of her adult acting chops, and the screenwriter wanted to further the downfall of her career. David Niven was hardly in the movie, and while his comic timing is always very good, it was a throwaway part that he easily walked through.

While parts of this picture are mildly amusing, all in all it is a failure. The storyline is convoluted and occasionally plain weird and the characters (including Corliss Archer, played by Shirley Temple) are off-putting. By 1949, Temple had lost all her pre-adolescent charm and had failed to develop any redeeming qualities that she was able to bring to bear in this film. Everyone, including David Niven in his role as Kenneth Marquis, is horribly overacting (the sole exception is the dog that does a decent job as the family pet). I really cannot imagine what Richard Wallace as director and Howard Dimsdale and F. Hugh Herbert as writers were thinking when they concocted this mess.

Shirley Temple tries to make her boyfriend angry by writing in her diary about her imaginary affair with David Niven. Later, when she's pretending to have amnesia, her father and David Niven find out and proceed to torture everyone.

It's a sequel to Miss Temple's 1945 vehicle, KISS AND TELL, in which she plays Corliss Archer, a fifteen-year-old girl created in a short story by F. Hugh Herbert. Miss Archer's sixteenth year of life lasted from 1943 through 1956 on the radio, and 1951, 1952, 1954 and 1955 on syndicated television. At least five actresses performed the role, plus however many did so in the stage play in 1943.

This was Miss Temple's last motion picture feature, and her most poorly received. It's episodic nature and idiotic plotting explain why. This was the period of time when America began to look upon teen-agers as a separate demographic, and all the old, stupid chestnuts were pulled out of the ashes for this one.

I saw this movie on Family Channel a few years ago and LOVED it! Anyone who likes Shirley temple, or just classic movies in general will love this sweet movie. I'm still waiting for Family Channel to run it again. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is another movie sort of like this one, with the same kind of happiness and fun.