Bright Eyes (1934)

Film: Bright Eyes (1934)

Stars: Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Lois Wilson, Judith Allen, Charles Sellon, Jane Withers, Jane Darwell

Director: David Butler

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Temple (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Shirley Temple wasn't a star from birth, but she comes closer than anyone we've profiled in six seasons of this series.  Basically considered to be the prototypical (and biggest) child star in the history of the movies, Temple was working in film as early as the age of four in comedy shorts for Educational Pictures where children pretended to be adults.  This eventually led to Temple being signed to a contract at Fox, where she began being paired with actor James Dunn, including in today's film Bright Eyes, which was the first film specifically written for Temple to see if she had what it took to stand on her own after successful co-lead roles earlier that year.  The film was Bright Eyes, and it was a big hit, the first of many that she would have with Fox over the next few years.  At the height of the depression, the Number One box office draw in America was about to become a 6-year-old girl.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Shirley Blake (Temple), a maid's daughter who is raised by her working mother (since her father died in a plane crash), and her godfather Loop (Dunn), a fellow pilot who was best friend's with her dad.  Her mother is about to be fired, just after Christmas (Bright Eyes is tangentially a Christmas movie in the same way that something like Die Hard is), but before that happens she dies in a mid-movie twist, getting hit by a car while her daughter is off entertaining the pilots with a song-and-dance routine.  This leaves her in the care, for a moment, with the snobbish rich family her mother had worked for thanks to the wealthy uncle of the group (played by Charles Sellon) being soft on Shirley.  But Loop also wants to take care of her, and this sets off a legal battle, with Loop, Uncle Ned, and Loop's former romantic flame Adele (Allen) all fighting for who gets to take care of her.  In the end, they all do-they form a sort of makeshift family of people who love Shirley, and Uncle Ned's money-hungry relatives are left with nothing.

The movie reads as a comedy, and it is, though it's weirdly serious.  There's a scene where Dunn takes Temple up into an airplane, and has to tell her that her mother has joined her father in heaven, and it's very moving, but also bizarre because the film isn't really prepared to handle the grief of a little girl losing her parents at such a young age.  They basically treat her faith as something akin to her belief in Santa earlier in the film, something that will need to be addressed at a later date, but we are just going to ignore the fact that Shirley has had an awful life, and maybe it's okay to let her be sad for a little while.  As I've seen no other of Temple's films as a child actor, I'm intrigued to see if this is a common refrain or if this is exclusive to Bright Eyes.

It's easy to see, though, why America fell in love with Temple-she has oodles of charisma, is adorable, and is a born star.  This film is most famous for her rendition of "On the Good Ship Lollipop" which she performs to a group of military pilots to rapturous applause, and she's adorable during it.  You understand why later films would capitalize on her talents as a singer, putting centerpiece musical numbers at the heart of the film.  She's matched in terms of star quality by Jane Withers as the bratty Joy.  Withers would also become a star during the era, one of several stars at the time (Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, & Deanna Durbin were others) who would become major box office draws as a teenager or younger, largely due to the studio wanting to try this approach thanks to the massive success Temple received from films like Bright Eyes.  Withers & Temple hide the fact that the rest of the cast (save maybe Oscar-winner Dunn) is not good in this movie, and the adult women are somewhat identical & interchangeable.  But you don't go to a Shirley Temple movie for the adults-you go for Shirley, and this is a good start to our month-long tribute to her.