April 23 Shirley Temple

Happy Birthday Sandra Dee and Shirley Temple

TCM Celebrated Shirley Temple’s birthday early, April 13th and even showed one in prime time as part of the Civil War special programming. I did not realize that Bill Robinson was in three Shirley Temple films. It has been awhile since I have seen them so I will have to look those up. I think my favorite Shirley Temple film is The Poor Little Rich Girl with Alice Faye and Jack Haley but they are all good, enjoyable films. I haven’t seen very many films of Shirley as a teenager or an adult. So to celebrate Shirley Temple I watched Kathleen. She may not be the adorable child but she shows real acting talent in this film. Teenage life is difficult for most average people, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for a great child actor.

Shirley plays the title role as a teenager who’s mother died at birth and her father, Herbert Marshall is wrapped up in work and his life that he does not spend a lot of time with his daughter. He is dating polished Gail Patrick (who is dressed incredibly well, hats and all). Shirley has a governess who treats her like a prisoner always watching and snooping around. Shirley is moody and lonely. Shirley plots a little plan to catch her governess snooping. Herbert unhappy that things have progressed to his notice calls in a doctor to examine Shirley. He finds the governess below Shirley’s intelligence and suggests a new one until she goes to school in the fall, Laraine Day. She is a young, lovely doctor who treats Shirley like a person and gives her the freedom to be herself. Shirley dreams that Laraine and Herbert fall in love. Laraine wears pins on her top and Shirley starts to imitate that aspect. Shirley has an adult friend in town who she often visits just to talk and to have lunch. She has made up parts of her life and shares those stories with him.

In one dream sequence Shirley becomes a Broadway musical star to make money to bribe Gail away from Herbert. It is a tame musical number at best, Shirley doesn’t really dance but floats around the stage. Her voice is dubbed (???) to a more operatic adult sound. When Gail comes to her dressing room Shirley acts very adult where the adults act more like children.

When Herbert and Gail decide to marry Shirley does not react well. She goes to visit her friend and find he is packing up and moving to Pennsylvania. She sneaks on one of the trucks as they leave. Herbert and Laraine are frantic. When the man finds Shirley the next day he promises he wont call her father, but he has too. When Laraine and Herbert come to get her, they tell her they are going to marry. Her dream has come true.