This one is fascinating – another TV production, this time by the BBC for the “Wednesday Play” series, and boy does that show: the word “pretentious” certainly comes to mind but I for one won’t be using it because this is one of the best adaptations of the book that I’ve yet seen. It begins by perfectly recreating the part of the story that has always been the most strongly evocative part to me: the simple, lazy image of Alice and her sister on the bank on a hazy Summer afternoon (“All in a golden afternoon …”). From there it launches into some of the most surreal, dreamlike progressions I’ve ever seen on film. It captures some part of the book that few other adaptations would dare. Through clever editing, it’s the closest and most prolonged replica of the dream experience I’ve seen.

I wouldn’t have thought it, as I’m quite attached to the innocent and gracious image of Alice in the blue dress with blonde hair in a bow etc, but I quite like this Hermione-haired, black-dressed, aloof version as played by Anne-Marie Mallik, too; I love how she’s always walking away from people with a “hmph!” flick of her hair. The look she almost gives the camera as the caucus-race “winners” gather around uttering, “prizes, prizes, prizes”, quite like zombies droning, “brains”, lol, is quite priceless, it’s the look of a person bemused by the herd-like behaviours of society.

In short, what it lacks in colour, effects, costumes and comprehensiveness, it makes up for entirely with the feeling it gives by the extraordinary stillness, both in the image and in the soundtrack, Mallik’s whispery distant voiceover, and that very BBC “Play for Today” type score (excepting the odd moment when it, like the imagery, goes a little mental). At 70 minutes, there’s no excuse to pass up the chance to see it.

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 is another Temple vehicle desperately light on story. I’d say the songs were nice, especially the main “Codfish Ball” but 2 minutes after the end credits all I had stuck in my head was the awkwardly similar “Lambeth Walk”, lol. There’s an interesting surreal sequence with Shirley as a tiny nurse tending to a man dressed as a baby in an oversized highchair, complete with oversized props and a staircase for Shirley to reach him by. I’d raise the creepy card again, but it’s at least a little visual creativity amidst 75 minutes of bland nothingness.

Again, I probably made an error watching more than one of these in one sitting and this was the one that suffered but all I can do is write what I can about it. This struck me almost immediately as a little too much like Annie, everything that didn’t resemble it only making me wish I was watching Alicia Morton or even Aileen Quinn rather than Shirley Temple. Really nothing special unless you’re crazy for Shirley. It’s 75-minutes of everything going relatively smoothly, with songs liberally sprinkled to pass the time; this doesn’t do a lot for me.

“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.

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.