Curly Top (1935)

Film: Curly Top (1935)

Stars: Shirley Temple, John Boles, Rochelle Hudson, Jane Darwell, Esther Dale

Director: Irving Cummings

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 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.

For as long as there have been child stars, there have been child star cautionary tales.  Child performers ranging from Carl Switzer & Bobby Driscoll to Dana Plato & Amanda Bynes have suffered from depression, suicide, criminal behavior, and drug addiction.  One of Shirley Temple's child actor rivals during this era, Judy Garland, would become the textbook example of a "doomed child star."  But Shirley Temple, the world's biggest star and arguably the most important child actor in film history, largely escaped such plights...though if she had succumbed, there would have been reason for it.  Behind the iconic curls & adorable grin, Temple's offscreen life was tough.  In 1934, she was such a big deal that she made ten movies, and another four a piece in 1935 & 1936, virtually all of them as the lead.  Keep in mind that in 1936, Temple turned eight-this was an enormous amount of pressure to put on such a little girl.  During this time, her father spent much of the fortune she was bringing in (despite a court order that they keep it aside for her), nearly leaving her broke in adulthood.  She had an attempted assassination at the age of 11 when a woman became obsessed with Temple for "stealing her daughter's soul" and she was worked to the bone, frequently being forced to film when she had suffered injuries or after an eardrum operation.  All of this is to say that, while Temple would become the counterpoint to Garland, as the child star that got through the industry unscathed, it wasn't like Hollywood wasn't trying to take her down as they made a profit off of her.

(Spoilers Ahead) We are focusing today on Curly Top, one of the four starring roles that Temple took on in 1935, when she was basically printing money for Fox her box office was so consistent.  Here she plays Elizabeth (Temple), who goes by the nickname Curly because of her hair.  She and her older sister Mary (Hudson) are adopted by a wealthy man named Edward (Boles), after Edward meets them both at an orphanage.  He does this, though, under the guise of being a surrogate for a "Mr. Jones" rather than admitting he and his aunt are adopting Curly and serving as Mary's guardian.  Curly loves both her sister and Edward, but it's clear that Edward, over the summer, has developed romantic feelings for Mary.  By the end of the summer, Edward & Mary have found love, and decide to get married, finally providing Curly with the kind of home she'd always dreamed of in the orphanage.

The movie's plot reads as a bit "sus," and it'd be a lot more problematic if it made any sense at all.  The film was actually remade with Fred Astaire & Leslie Caron in the 1950's and was called Daddy Long Legs, though I suspect that plot will have changed (I've weirdly never seen it, but always meant to), since this one focuses solely on Temple.  That's partially why it doesn't come across as particularly nefarious-Mary & Edward are just props being moved around so that Temple can mug for the camera, sometimes literally (there's a lot of confusing fourth-wall breaks in this picture).

That said, Temple's a delight here.  This is the source of "Animal Crackers in My Soup," which is one of her signature songs, and it's sweet in the film.  Temple is better in the first half of the movie when she's off getting into mischief at the orphanage rather than when she's being doted upon in the latter half of the picture.  Your mileage on this will vary on your tolerance for precociousness, but I get why fans of Temple's frequently name-check this as one of their favorites-it has pretty much every reason to like Temple (cute one-liners, dancing, musical numbers) all wrapped into 75 minutes.