Le petit colonel

America's favorite moppet Shirley Temple may have met her match in scene stealing with Lionel Barrymore playing her grandfather. Just watching Barrymore taking back his scenes from Temple makes The Little Colonel an enjoyable film to watch.

Barrymore complete with white suit, Panatella, and goatee with long white hair looks like the spitting image of Colonel Sanders. He's one reconstructed old rebel and what Lee and Grant signed at Appomattox has no bearing on him. All he has to hear is that his daughter Evelyn Venable has taken unto herself a Yankee for a husband and he disowns her. So she and John Davis Lodge go first north and west and have themselves a daughter.

When Lodge goes into the west with a couple of shifty partners in a prospecting deal, he sends Venable and the little girl they have now back south to live with grandfather. Well kind of, as they take a gate cottage to live in.

But as these Shirley Temple movies go, you know it's Shirley who brings all the warring parties together. Who could resist.

The Little Colonel is known for that famous dance that Bill Robinson does with Shirley Temple on the staircase. It's still as entertaining as it ever was. The last couple of minutes are in color in which all the principal players appeared in that for the first time.

The scenes with Barrymore and Temple are absolutely precious. Just who was the best capturer of the audience's attention. Judge for yourself.

There will never be a child star to match Shirley Temple. A born actress, dancer, and entertainer. In this movie she has an amazing support cast of Lionel Barrymore who plays the part of a crusty grandfather but Shirley with her cute and charming ways soon melts the heart of the old grandfather.

Hattie Mac Daniel plays the faithful servant and once again it made you realize just how much these beloved negroes sometimes knew more than " The white folks". The dancing down the steps with "Bojangles Bill Robinson" is something that can make you appreciate the talent of a young and not so young. The story line can be weak in places and the acting might be a bit corny to todays standards but if you need a feel good movie then drag out a Shirley Temple movie . You won't be disappointed.

THE LITTLE COLONEL (Fox, 1935), directed by David Butler, stars Shirley Temple in one of her more famous movie roles during her early years as a young performer. Aside from her initial teaming with legendary dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (4th billed during opening credits, bottom billed in the closing), with whom she does a memorable "stair" dance, it places her against odds with the crusty Lionel Barrymore, on loan out assignment from MGM, sporting white hair, bushy eyebrows and droopy mustache in the old Southerner/ or Claude Gillingwater Sr. tradition, and what a pair they make.

Based on a story by Annie Fellows Johnston, the plot opens with a prologue set in 1870s Kentucky on a Southern plantation where Colonel Lloyd (Lionel Barrymore) disowns his beloved daughter, Elizabeth (Evelyn Venable) for eloping with a "Yankee", Jack Sherman (John Lodge). During their six years in Philadelphia, Jack and Elizabeth have been blessed with a child, Lloyd (Shirley Temple), whom they witness being commissioned as a "little colonel" by soldiers on a western outpost. With John remaining at the post, Elizabeth returns to Kentucky where she and Lloyd settle in an old cottage left to her by her late mother that happens to be next door to her father. After meeting his granddaughter with an introduction of getting mud thrown on him, he finds her to be just as stubborn and quick tempered as he. In spite of their rugged start and similar personality traits, Grandpa eventually warms up to Lloyd, though his stubbornness keeps him from having anything to do with his daughter, even when learning of swindlers Swazey (Sidney Blackmer) and Hull (Aden Chase) in their home threatening the ailing Jack and Elizabeth to turn over the deed to worthless property they sold him that has been proved valuable.

THE LITTLE COLONEL, a leisurely paced story with familiar theme, relies mostly on the strength of its leading players, Temple and Barrymore. It's also one of the better films in which Temple does not typically play an orphan. Evelyn Venable, whose career failed to take off after a promising start opposite Fredric March in DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY (Paramount, 1934), provides the opening playing the harp and singing "Love's Young Dream" to her guests. The song is later reprized by Temple serenading to her grandfather as he envisions his daughter at the harp. John Lodge, virtually forgotten but better known for his performance as Count Alexi in THE SCARLET EMPRESS (Paramount, 1934) starring Marlene Dietrich, has little to do until the final half of the story. Hattie McDaniel, four years away her Academy Award winning performance in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), supports as the Sherman maid, Mom Beck. Dressed in "Aunt Jemima" attire, she shares amusing moments with Colonel Lloyd's butler (Robinson), sharing time together with the "little colonel" at a spiritual gathering witnessing a woman getting dunked in the river where she's having her sins washed away as Negroes sing "The Sun Shines Brighter." Aside from the aforementioned "stair dance," Temple and Robinson do an encore tap dancing to Stephen Foster's "Oh, Susannah" in the stable to harmonica playing by May Lily (Avonne Johnson). Johnson, along with Nyamza Potts as her little brother, Henry Clay, support as Temple's playmates. As in many Temple films, there's a pet dog, this time a pooch named Fritzi. Others in the cast include William Burress (Doctor Scott); Geneva Williams (Maria); and Robert Warwick (Colonel Gray).

Priot to 1985, THE LITTLE COLONEL played frequently on commercial television with the closing segment, filmed in Technicolor, usually absent, with story coming to an abrupt conclusion either after Barrymore's closing line or next scene of McDaniel successfully breaking down the door after being locked in by one of Sherman's "guests." When distributed on video in 1988, the closing Technicolor segment was restored, and shown intact at 82 minutes on cable TV broadcasts on the Disney Channel (early 1990s), American Movie Classics (1996-2001) and finally the Fox Movie Channel. THE LITTLE COLONEL is currently available on DVD in black and white or colorized versions.

The success of THE LITTLE COLONEL brought forth a similar theme and title of THE LITTLEST REBEL (1935), reuniting Temple with Bill Robinson once again, with plot set during the Civll War instead of after-wards. Both classic films with Temple (and Robinson) at the peak of their careers. (***1/2)

I grew up with Shirley Temple. In 1932 she made 12 movies as an adorable baby doll of four years old. In 1933 she made four films; in 1934 eleven films the best was "Stand Up & Cheer" and "Baby, Take A Bow". In 1935 four films; in 1936 Captain January", in 1937 "Heidi"; in 1938 "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "The Little Princess". In 1940 two movies, and in 1941 her first flop. 1944 she made a comeback in "Since You Went Away" and "I'll Be Seeing You". 1947 she made three films including "Bachelor & the Bobby Soxer". 1948 "Fort Apache" when she met her first husband John Agar. In 1949 she made four good films the best of which was "A Kiss for Corliss". Nobody wanted little Shirley to grow up, so I must say my favorite film of hers was "The Little Colonel" in which she sang and danced so well with the famed Bill Robinson. In that film she played against the great Lionel Barrymore.

It's odd that Shirley Temple made two similar movies in the same year, both involving Civil War-type story lines and her character being very similar. "The Littlest Rebel" took place during the Civil War and "The Little Colonel" took place right after the war.

For some reason, I get an extra feeling being choked up seeing Shirley melting a crabby old man's heart as she did in some of her films, this being one of them. Here, it's Lionel Barrymore who was fun to watch in any film.

The lead female role was played by Evelyn Venable and she really wasn't up to the standards, beauty-wise, set by previous Temple adult feminine leads such s Gloria Stuart, Karen Moreley, Rochelle Hudson, etc. But, that's not important.

The story was more important and in case - surprise - I found this to run a distant second to the aforementioned "The Littlest Rebel." This movie was, frankly, boring in comparison.

I am not one of the crying Liberals who boycott Temple''s films because blacks in these movies were denigrated. Unfortunately, that's what you saw in 1930s films....and what's done is done. However, the black characters in here are just plain treated embarrassingly bad. Everyone's Mr. Nice Guy (mine, too) Bill Robinson, didn't come on the scene and dance with Shirley until later in the film when I had lost interest.

Temple, meanwhile, is so cute that she's even likable when she's a brat, as she acts several times with the old man (but apologizes later for her behavior).

It's still a good film but I prefer the "Rebel" over the "Colonel" in the battle of these 1935 Civil War-themed stories.