“There ain’t no Santa Claus!”
“Don’t say ain’t! Say isn’t.”

Okay, this is more like it. I was surprised as I checked about 10 minutes into this that it, too, like the three Shirley Temple movies I watched at the end of last week, was released in 1934. She looks a year or two older to me as she appears at the start here, marching down the road in flying leathers hitching a ride to the airport, and she looks a lot more comfortable too.

But just 15 minutes later, I discover, yet again there’s something in this Shirley Temple movie that overshadows pretty much all her contribution. It’s Jane Withers, a screen brat who certainly predated but possibly also exceeds the likes of Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed. It’s astonishing given the clear value Temple held for Hollywood at the time that nobody seems ever to have stepped in and put a damper on Withers’ performance – if it can be called that even. Where Temple is as controlled and directed as ever, Withers seems simply to have been placed on the set with her full knowing that if anyone’s going to notice her over her co-star, then dangit she’s gonna have to scream, lol.

Anyway, the story worked for me and even moved me, despite Shirley’s complete inability to stir empathy in me. James Dunn as the godfather Loop is fantastic, particularly when explaining to Shirley about her mother – and the ending is one of the most beautiful ideas I’ve seen in a movie so old … early in the movie, Loop asks Shirley “how much do you love me?” and she gives him the tightest of hugs, and this he repeats in order to make her hold on as they bail out of a storm-wracked plane with one parachute. There’s some funny business with the Uncle in the wheelchair too. Well worth the watch, and I’ll likely bring it out at Christmas some time as that’s where the movie begins.

Now, how do I say this …? Despite really enjoying Daddy Day Care, I still came to this expecting the absolute worst after the reviews and, well, just look at the re-casting they did. It’s almost as bad as Splash, Too, lol. The presence of Cuba Gooding Jr. not only makes it worse but adds the whole dimension of depressing to the picture. I mean, really: what happened to him?!

But you know what? It grew on me. I laughed. Loudly in places. I mentioned about the toilet humour in the first movie that I liked how it threatened to go too far yet never quite did. I’ve gotta say, here, the gross stuff does go a little far – you could almost make a direct comparison between the “I missed!” scene in the first movie where evidently a little boy with potty problems gives Eddie Murphy’s bathroom a new coat of brown paint, yet all this is played from Murphy’s expression, and a scene here where a kid vomits all over the inside of Cuba Gooding’s tent – I guess Gooding’s expressions aren’t as convincing, because he has to have some of the vomit drop on his forehead. Later, we get the full-on Problem Child/Little Britain style projectile stuff. Not necessary. But I did laugh.

In the end it has just as solid a family message as the first, and I was honestly slightly stirred especially by the son taking matters into his own hands to win the contest, also the climbing wall smashing down on all the trophies Scattered throughout are a number of scenes with a very cute girl called Telise Galanis who hopefully has a future. I truly had no problems with it. Yes, the first is better, duh, it was first. But this one really deserves some kudos for overcoming such mindbogglingly bad casting issues.

“She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago – but I loved her, this Lolita, pale and polluted and big with another man’s child. She could fade and wither – I didn’t care. I would still go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of her face.”

First thing that must be said here is how much funnier this is than I ever remember it. The two adaptations of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel are usually separated quite cleanly as “Kubrick funny and Lyne serious” but it’s really nowhere near as simple as that. There are tons of laughs in this version, particularly early on as the game begins in the Haze household. “Is she keeping you up?” Charlotte asks Hum after his and Lo’s first intimate moment, and later, “Just slap her hard if she interferes with your scholarly meditations.” This humour continues throughout the film, usually undercutting any potential discomfort caused by the underage sex etc. (the sleeptalking at the Enchanted Hunters, eg.). The movie kind of snaps in two at the moment when Humbert tells Lo about her mother and the first scene of her crying (some of the most gutwrenching crying ever put on film, I might add, I can hardly bear it no matter how many times I watch the movie) – but even after that the laughs are horrifyingly infectious – the riotous start to the “road trip” portion of the story, for instance, with Lo flinging hairgrips and such at Humbert from the back seat makes one entirely forget just exactly what is going on and indeed what just happened.

Ennio Morricone’s score (it’s the tragic atonal notes that kill me), Jon Hutman’s production design (and/or Chris Shriver’s art direction – I’ve never been able to differentiate between the two roles, lol), Howard Atherton’s cinematography, and Judianna Makovsky’s costume design all deserve individual mention – the production design in particular, though. It’s the motels that stand out of course (“Children under 14 free!”) but the details of the props, from whiskey glasses to the Magic Fingers to the whole damn interior of the car are amazing too, everything has a weighty, tangible believability to it. Lyne’s imagery is virtually flawless, it’s certainly a leap from his 80s thrillers anyway; the introduction to Lolita in the garden is just as arresting as that in the ‘62 movie, and that’s really no mean feat to accomplish. Such things as the grotesque shot of Quilty’s hand “fingering” the dog leash jar occasionally but it all contributes to the uneasy balance of light and dark. Looking at the nominations for the 1998 Oscars (or even ‘99, when the movie was nominated for some more minor accolades), it’s a genuine shame that this movie ultimately got such a messy release, because in the minor categories it could’ve had a serious shot (I’m always amused, however, when I’m reminded that Dominique Swain and Jeremy Irons were nominated for Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards :))

Unlike many (and I’ve said this many times before, hopefully I’m not boring anyone with repetition) I’ve a huge place in my heart for both Lolita adaptations. They’re just entirely different films as the novel is a different work too. I have no great desire as some do to see it done “correctly” or from Nabokov’s own screenplay (which I have but haven’t yet read) though of course I’d watch such a thing in a flash and probably build yet another cavern of love in my chest for that too.

I have to include just one more quote in this review, I could honestly fill a page with them though – it’s the one that ends the movie and what always brings me back to regarding it as every bit as good an adaptation as Kubrick’s no matter where it may stumble along the way:

“What I heard then was the melody of children at play. Nothing but that. And I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita’s absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that chorus.”

Both quotes are almost straight from the novel, albeit shortened; both are beautiful and really get to the heart of why Lolita is so much more than it’s often unfortunately mistaken for. It’s been too long since I actually read the novel, I read it almost every year for a while but I can’t seem to find the time to read these days. Watching this, however, not to mention searching an e-text for those particular lines and finding the glorious expanded versions of them, definitely made me want to find time. Anyone who hasn’t read it at least once should feel even more compelled.

“Will you say multi-dextrose for me again? It’s too cute.”

I really expected this to be an intolerable nightmare saved only by Elle Fanning, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing through it a lot more than is probably acceptable, even a couple of l’il tears in my eyes in places. Angelica Huston is practically perfect if a little familiar (she even gets a similar ending here to her character in Ever After) as the evil headmistress of a first class pre-school trying to thwart the relatively restrained Eddie Murphy’s attempts to start a more homely form of daycare, and Lacey Chabert is fun as her sidekick. The kids are adorable almost without exception – they all have their “moments”, particularly at the end when announcing to parents being shown around Huston’s school how they’ve benefited from the daddy day care. Steve Zahn is perfect as a Trekkie who’s able to handle the kids better than anybody since he accidentally read Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare.

The movie’s mood veers effortlessly from toilet humour that threatens to go too far at times yet never does and is actually surprisingly effective (“I missed!”) through to pure schmaltz and heartstring tuggery. For family entertainment, I found it almost literally bang in between the astonishing R.V. and the abysmal Yours, Mine and Ours that it most resembles … I don’t know what that means to anyone else, but to me it means I really have no objections, I loved it.

Maybe it was the roll on effect of watching these three in one sitting, but by the time I got to this one, I really found it hard to endure. Once again Miss Temple is placed in questionable adult care, a criminal and his girl trying their best to go straight. It has a lot more in the way of story than the other two I watched this night; and for an early-30s production it’s perhaps surprising how harshly it confronts reality.

But again, it’s just not a Shirley Temple movie … whatever that is. Aside from Stand Up and Cheer, which as I’ve already said was entertaining for many reasons other than Shirley, I’ve not yet seen anything to change my view of her as really quite far from talented. She’s adorable, it’s true; and she hits her marks and notes etc like a seasoned pro. But there’s absolutely nothing natural about her performances, and it’s frequently so controlled and choreographed as to be frankly unsettling. In a stylised musical like Stand Up it works perfectly … but in a “real” movie like this, alongside Carole Lombard and Gary Cooper? It really jars, I’m afraid. The whole movie is just a real downer.

I should’ve mentioned in my Stand Up and Cheer! review when I said “it’s a lot more than just a Shirley Temple movie” that I pointed that out because that was probably the one thing I could pinpoint which made the movie so much better than I feared. Despite being crazy about young actresses, I’ve really never been too interested in Miss Temple; but it’s always been based on fairly limited experience of her work, being the reason why I’m beginning to make an attempt to catch up on the evidence. I watched this, Stand Up and Now and Forever in one sitting – I’m not sure if this was wise, but they’re short movies and it made sense at the time. They were also all released in 1934, Shirley’s first year of feature acting.

The “marker” of the title here refers to the fact that we meet Shirley this time around as her father uses her for collateral on a gambling ticket. Shortly thereafter she’s the center of another wager over her weight – old men gather round as they determine the winner on a set of scales. There’s a weird bedtime scene – and when I find such things weird you’ve gotta wonder – where she has one of these men help her with her underwear …

It sounds so innocuous and it should be, but honestly I’m with Graham Greene on this so far. On the one hand, Shirley Temple was a lot more like a “real little girl” than any of the starlets we’ve seen since – she didn’t have a hint of precocity about her and all she really ever did was laugh, cry, and sing. But there’s something about certain moments of her – it really comes over as deliberately sensual, and like I said, when I’m finding things like this unsettling … I think it’s the contrast or something. Precocious and sexual never phases me – but this gawkish, squeaky thing barely an ex-toddler gasps and says, “they button up the back!” out of the blue … it gives me the heeby-jeebies or something. I’ve probably said too much. But like I said: Graham Greene … I’m in good company. I’m assuming I can’t be sued as he was for speaking my mind.

Anyway now you’ll know why it’s taken me a day since the Stand Up review to post this even though they were watched side-by-side … I kept wanting to include this paragraph but I couldn’t believe that I’d written such a thing just days after finding this article so risible. I guess we all have our funny lines.

I just found it odd in general. I find it odder that I can’t find a single review out there that questions the whole set-up, lol. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.

My first Shirley Temple movie in years (and I’ve only seen a handful at most) and one of my first truly “old” movies in far too long. I was pretty apprehensive on both counts but I probably couldn’t have picked a better movie to re-introduce me to old Hollywood.

There’s little to speak of by way of story – it’s the Depression and the White House appoints a New York theatre man as Secretary of Amusement (great idea, right? I thought so too, lol). There’s a slight love story in the mix. It’s really more an excuse for 70 minutes of lavish song and dance numbers, a lively comedy duo called Mitchell & Durant pre-empting Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson by decades throwing each other around an office, lol; even a talking penguin at the end. What it comes down to is, it’s a lot more than just a Shirley Temple movie, and considering the runtime that’s pretty impressive. I enjoyed every second of it and would certainly watch it again.

The Tobe Hooper remake of the ‘78 “classic” immediately hits the highest level of interest that the original stirred in me by the mere presence of Angela Bettis, who I could happily watch for two hours waiting for a bus. That we see her early on doing her laundry, deliberately or not invoking memories of May, only pulls me in more. But that’s pretty much where the draw for me ends here, and it’s unlikely I’ll watch it again even for her.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the movie – in fact, there are some really nice ideas. For one, the manner in which they use the source material – clinging to sketchy details but most importantly using the Bettis character as an outsider who witnesses the whole thing through the walls of her apartment in a spooky old Hollywood hotel. The first time she hears scary noises and reports them, it turns out to be some actors rehearsing, which makes the nailgun scene that follows, which I loved so much in the original, particularly riveting.

Unfortunately, it runs out of steam too quickly, and rather shoots itself in the foot in the end with occult nonsense the likes of which you’d expect to find in a dire 80s TV movie. The gore has nothing on the Seventies version, and really aside from Bettis there’s little reason to recommend it over the more haunting original.