Little White Lie

I'm so disappointed there are no acting credits here for this little movie. It just screened on TCM, which has no credit info, either. Workmanlike acting from the grownups and decent production values put a sturdy floor under this brief treacly tale of an orphaned girl, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, who goes to the home of a kind sweet couple. They love her and very much want her to stay, but they wait for her to decide for herself not to remain an orphan.

This girl's got chops! a direct intensity and an affecting (not affected) voice. The director knew it, too, and gives her some riveting close-ups. At first glimpse, in pigtailed profile, she looks a lot like the very young Natalie Wood in "Tomorrow Is Forever" (1946), but I'm fairly certain the voice and skin tone are someone else's. But whose? I feel sure if she'd gone on to make more films at any age, we'd know her name.

I hope some reader of this little review will take it into the MGM archive and emerge with a cast list.

These "short's " were sold as packages of a full program, your main feature, your cartoon's, a newsreel and short and the 2nd movies - there was a time when everybody went to the movies. And so what it's bad, I think American Gothic , completely sucks! And it's a contemporary hit a TV show that kills kid in some of it's segements but that is the USA the country that ....oh well.

Little White Lie (1945)

** (out of 4)

A rather bizarre short from MGM has something to do with a "little white lie" but I must have missed something because I didn't see it. The story centers around a young girl (Sharon MacManus) who decides to leave a young couple after the mom "learns all their is to know" about her new baby son. The girl goes to live in an orphanage while the young couple wishes she was still around. I'm really not sure what all of this was suppose to mean unless it was just a built up for the "tearful" ending but I found this short to be rather confusing, boring and the entire twist at the end just didn't work. This film spends way too much time trying to come off sweet and cute and while it's doing all of this the director forgets to actually put anything overly interesting on the screen. MacManus is decent in her role but I'm sure most will remember her from ANCHORS AWEIGH.

Mawkish, sentimental nonsense about a little orphan girl (SHARON MacMANUS), who for some strange reason doesn't want a married couple to know that she does indeed want to be adopted by them. Sharon is the matchstick thin little girl with the big sad eyes who danced with Gene Kelly in a famous scene from of "Anchors Aweigh." Here she's given a Margaret O'Brien type of role with a poor script and dull direction.

She's conflicted about whether to stay in the orphanage or return to the arms of a young couple who want to adopt her. Despite all their assurances that they love her, she returns to the orphanage only to find that she really does love and miss them. That's about it. Somewhere in there is a little white lie--but the story is simply an excuse for a tearful reunion with the girl embracing both parents as snow falls around the Christmas holidays.

A trifle easily forgotten.