Ginger

Jane Wither's first starring vehicle has her living on 9th Avenue with her guardian, O.P.Heggie, a washed-up Shakespearean actor. When he gets into a fight and sentenced to thirty days in jail, Park Avenue dame Katherine Alexander, who is writing a book she intends to call ARE CHILDREN PEOPLE, decides to take her home to see if a good environment can save her --it's already turned her son, Jackie Searle, into one of those milquetoast horrors that Our Gang warned us against. Fortunately, Ginger finds an ally in the house's paterfamilias, Walter Woolf King.

It's soapy and sappy and decently done. Clearly the folks at the rapidly disintegrating Fox --- soon to be taken over by Darryl Zanuck's 20th Century -- hoped for another Shirley Temple. Miss Withers clearly was not Shirley -- she was tough and pugnacious and her vehicles were clearly B movies. That was all right, since Fox' B division had plenty of talent grown used to doing things on the cheap. Her movies were lively and popular and her career prospered in parallel to Miss Temple's for another seven years.

Happily, Miss Withers is still with us in her nineties and can be seen from time to time. Here's hoping more of her movies can be made available!