Shirley, Take a Bow
In 1935, ’36, ’37, and ’38, little Shirley Temple was America’s number one box-office attraction, beating not only Astaire and Rogers but Clark Gable, the King himself. During this peak of her career, from age seven to ten, Temple gave Depression audiences some of their happiest moments at the movies, notably her showstopping tap dance, up and down stairs, with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in The Little Colonel (1935), or when singing “Animal Crackers (in My Soup)” in Curly Top (1935). Temple became the pipsqueak queen of the Fox lot, the adorable tot who could do it all, not just sing and dance but generate laughter and tears. (Her singing and acting now look merely adequate, while her tapping can still knock you out.)
It was in 1934 when stardom struck, thanks to a string of hits including Little Miss Marker, Baby Take a Bow, and Bright Eyes (in which she introduced “On the Good Ship Lollipop”). While Gable was offering moviegoers his sexual sizzle, and Fred and Ginger were spinning glamorous fantasies, sunny yet spunky Shirley was triumphantly beaming optimism, all in the name of escapism during troubled times. When Temple died at 85 on February 10th, she hadn’t been that Shirley Temple for about 75 years. However, America’s favorite little girl, forever frozen in childhood, never really stopped casting her joyous spell.
One of her best films is the picturesque Heidi (1937), made when the Temple formula was already well-honed and strictly obeyed. Shameless yet irresistible, Heidi milks every emotion, while apparently in complete control of its intended effects. You can pick at its flaws—an icky wooden-shoes fantasy number, a slapstick scene with a small monkey, an overelaborate chase by cops—all the while succumbing to Shirley’s melodramatic battle with some baddies in the Alps. She is, of course, indomitably good, kind, and resourceful. And she can do it all: yodel, milk a goat, sing a church hymn, you name it! Does anyone doubt that this orphan will melt the heart of her gruff, unwelcoming grandfather (Jean Hersholt)? Temple, at times, can be a bit sickening, with her too-cute matchmaking, her pouting when she ought to be acting, and her forced laughter. Yet she’s also at her best here, with her appealing feistiness arising to counteract the sugar content.
Heidi is an ideal Temple role because the character is a life force, a child with the power to change people’s lives for the better, a miniature Miss Fix-it. She rejuvenates grandpa, who comes to adore her, then helps wealthy wheelchair-bound Marcia Mae Jones to walk again. Not everyone is charmed. The movie has two villainesses: Mary Nash, as Jones’ governess, and Mady Christians, as Temple’s aunt. (Nash is named Fraulein Rottenmeier.) Who can resist Temple’s victories, particularly the scene of Jones walking into the arms of her father (Sidney Blackmer)? Savor Arthur Treacher, too, as the butler. His wry comic delivery is a delight, and he’s to be liked even more for having the good sense to become Temple’s ally in the plot. All in all, Heidi is a very satisfying piece of emotional, suspenseful, and well-mounted storybook filmmaking.
The Little Princess (1939) is another of Temple’s better and more enduring pictures, but it was released just as her popularity was starting to wane, a trend worsened thanks to The Blue Bird (1940), Fox’s oddball, cloying, and positively grotesque attempt to outdo The Wizard of Oz. Temple’s in-between years included a brief stay at MGM, which resulted in Kathleen (1941), a movie that clung too closely to the tired 1930s Temple formula. But it was a sweet-sixteen Temple who was in a big hit, the homefront drama Since You Went Away (1944), playing Claudette Colbert’s daughter and Jennifers Jones’ kid-sis. A lovely teenager, Temple unfortunately didn’t shown any signs of development as an actress, still suggesting the mechanical responses of a child player. It’s obvious she wasn’t headed for an Elizabeth Taylor- or Natalie Wood-style transition to adult stardom.
Another hit arrived with The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), with Temple as another kid-sister, this time Myrna Loy’s. Temple plays a self-dramatizing high-schooler who stalks Cary Grant. It’s a conventional and mostly witless comedy, despite Grant and Loy’s breezy teamwork, with Temple showing no signs of a comedic flair. Then, in John Ford’s Fort Apache (1948), she got to play Henry Fonda’s daughter. Following such a prestigious Ford-Fonda venture (though it’s a movie I dislike intensely), Temple concluded her movie career with four minor 1949 films. She retired at only 21. I suspect she realized that she and the movies had been done with each other for a while, essentially finished when the 1930s came to a close. She and 1940s Hollywood never found their groove, while her impact as a ’30s icon was secure. She remains the child star of child stars, the one who made a nation happy like no other ever had, or ever will.
