Finally Shirley gets a story. I felt like I could trust this from the off and in terms of pure production quality this is leagues above the other Shirley movies I’ve seen. The sets look right out of a storybook. I’m still left unimpressed by Shirley’s talent – there are a million 6-8 year olds who could deliver this stuff if you only threw discipline into the mix; to me the best child stars are the ones who can do it almost mystically of their own accord (I know, there are a million of those too, but they’re still more special) – but she’s mostly tolerable in the title role.

But though it’s better than some of the Shirley movies (Stand Up and Bright Eyes notwithstanding – I seem to remember enjoying The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer way back when I saw it too), I still imagine any number of the other Heidi adaptations are more enjoyable (I’ll find out later in the year, I’ve at least 3 in the queue). Which I guess is my point when it comes to the Shirley Temple movies. The defense everyone always uses for them is that she cheered everyone up through the Depression etc. which is fine and dandy but it paints the movies themselves as of the “pure entertainment” variety (which I’m rarely too hot on unless they have something else to them) and on that front they just don’t deliver as much anymore. I won’t deny their historical value, and Shirley herself is “cute enough” ... but there are still hundreds of movies that are more worth anybody’s time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 11:15 pm in 3 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as adaptation, b/w, cuties. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.