The Little Colonel (1935)

Film: The Little Colonel (1935)

Stars: Shirley Temple, Lionel Barrymore, Evelyn Venable, John Lodge, Bill Robinson, Hattie McDaniel

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 was such a big star by 1935, that at the age of seven, she managed to pull off something no other actor could've pulled off in a Hollywood that was still deeply segregated when it came to star billing.  In the 1930's through the 1950's, the Hays Code held back Black performers onscreen, and you rarely saw Black actors in major parts in movies.  It's worth noting that Hattie McDaniel not only would be the first Black actor to win a competitive Oscar, she'd do it 24 years before another Black actor would, basically the entire stretch of the Classical Hollywood era.  In 1935, Temple became part of the first interracial dance team with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, starting with The Little Colonel, our film today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about an intergenerational fight between Colonel Lloyd (Barrymore), his daughter Elizabeth (Venable), and his grand daughter Lloyd aka the Little Colonel (Temple).  When Elizabeth marries a man that the Colonel thinks is unworthy of her, Jack (Lodge), he cuts her out of his life.  Years later, Elizabeth moves back to living in the house that her mother left her in her will (down the road from her dad), and she brings with her her daughter Lloyd.  Little Lloyd doesn't understand the feud, particularly since she adores her father, and so she befriends the Colonel, who develops a soft spot for her.  Jack finds himself in a bad business deal, and is nearly broke (frequently Little Lloyd is concerned about them ending up in the "Poor House"), but when the deal turns out to be good for them, he is nearly cheated out of it by men trying to steal the deed to his land...until the Colonel, after some coaxing from Little Lloyd, storms in and aids in the arrest of the men trying to steal from his son-in-law.  All reconciled (and suddenly in Technicolor, the only time a young Temple was ever shot outside of black-and-white) they are finally a family again.

The movie is cute, with Temple about as adorable as can be here; she has great chemistry with her cast, and unlike some of her other movies, working alongside Barrymore & Hattie McDaniel, she has stronger actors to play off of and it improves the quality of the picture.  The movie's racial politics are suspect.  This is one of the few films (outside of Gone with the Wind) that I've seen where McDaniel is a definite featured, large role.  She has wonderful chemistry with Temple, and honestly is the best performance in the movie (she even steals scenes from Shirley, not an easy task), but being stuck playing a comic-relief maid during a Reconstruction Era South, this is not the most progressive role for McDaniel, and was one of the parts she'd be criticized for by the NAACP.  Still-there's no denying she's giving good work here.

As I mentioned above, this film featured the first (and most famous) dance sequence between Temple & Robinson, with the two of them dancing up a flight of stairs when little Shirley doesn't want to go to bed in her grandfather's house.  The two would end up being in four films together (the others being The Littlest Rebel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Just Around the Corner), and would become lifelong friends.  The scene wouldn't be seen in the South, though.  The first interracial dance team, even between a little girl and a grown man (whom in the confines of the film, works for her family), would've been unthinkable to play in the South, which would regularly delete scenes featuring Black actors throughout the coming decade.  So this scene, like all of the later scenes with the two dancing, was cut out of Temple & Robinson's films together.