Saturday, July 31, 2021

Family Fun Saturday - Dimples

20th Century Fox, 1936
Starring Shirley Temple, Frank Morgan, Helen Westley, and Robert Kent
Directed by William A. Seiter
Music by Jimmy McHugh; Lyrics by Ted Koehler

Most of Shirley Temple's movies followed the same basic pattern. She's an orphan taken in by lower-class citizens, including a man (usually an older man) she's close to. Her spunky ways charm members of the upper-class, including two younger people who side with her and her relatives. People who think they know better take her away...but she always returns to those she truly loves in the end, as she does in this one. How does this fairly typical example look today to kids with more jaded tastes? To answer that question, we start at the Bowery in 1853 New York, where a street gang performs for the passer-by...including a certain little girl with curls and a big smile...

The Story: Sylvia "Dimples" Appleby (Temple) loves dancing with her friends for pennies, but wishes her grandfather Professor Eustace (Morgan) would give up pickpocketing. She, her friends, and her grandfather are hired to play for a wealthy family at Washington Square Park. Mrs. Caroline Drew (Wesley) is taken with Dimples and asks her to live there, but she insists on staying with her grandfather.

Mrs. Drew's nephew Allen (Kent) shocks his fiancĂ©e Betty Loring (Delma Byron) and her stuffy father Colonel Loring (Burton Churchill) by becoming a stage producer. His first show is Uncle Tom's Cabin, with Dimples as Little Eva. The Professor gets into trouble by using Allen's money to buy a supposedly "antique" watch, which he can barely get a few dollars for at the pawn shop. Dimples agrees to live with Mrs. Drew so her grandfather will get the money and stay out of jail, but she's not happy away from him. 

The Song and Dance: Frank Morgan proved a formidable adversary for Shirley off-screen, being one of the only actors in any of her movies as prone to scene-stealing as she is. For all the problems, they do work well together and are believable as grandfather and adoring granddaughter. The other thing I like here is the unique setting. I don't know too many other family movies set in New York in the years prior to the Civil War; the kid gangs who roved the streets of the city then are even part of the plot. 

Favorite Number: Shirley kicks off the movies performing two really cute numbers with the street kids. "Hey, What Did the Blue-Jay Say?" is her big solo; talented young African-American dancers Jesse Scott and Thurman Black join her for "He Was a Dandy." She wistfully performs "Picture Me Without You" to her grandfather when she's leaving to live with Mrs. Drew.

What I Don't Like: This may be one of the most typical of Temple's films. Every melodramatic clichĂ© is here, from an old man in unfortunate circumstances to the disapproving high society folks to her being torn away from her guardian, only to suddenly return to him. That the film hinges on a performance of the now-controversial Uncle Tom's Cabin doesn't help. Almost the entire final 20 minutes feature more than half the cast in very obvious blackface, including Morgan, that may be considered horribly offensive today. 

The "Dixieanna" minstrel show number does show off snazzy choreography for Temple by none other than Bill Robinson...but it's also awash in blackface, including on actual African-American actor Stephin Fetchit. That the few real black actors in the film play servants (including Fetchit) is historically accurate to the time and place, but may rub many people the wrong way today.

The Big Finale: I'm afraid that dated finale and the ridiculous melodrama makes this one of Temple's lesser vehicles. Only if you're a huge fan of hers or Morgan's. 

Home Media: Easily found on DVD and streaming. 

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