Shirley Temple's first proper starring feature (she's billed above the title) benefits from a strong story and support cast: she's a little girl whose gambler father uses her as collateral for a bet, then is forced to live with gangsters once he kills himself. That's pretty full on and it gives this a good tough undercurrent which perhaps helped explained why little Shirl was so popular during the Depression.
Adolphe Menjou manages to keep the sentimentality respectable as he goes through the scenes he's expected to perform: teaching Shirley how to play, watching her learn gangster slang, dressing up as knights and wenches to cheer her up. There's not much he can do about the convenient last minute horse accident which requires an operation, but I did like the gangsters kidnapping the doctor from his wedding to operate on her and Charles Bickford's tough gangster melting like all the others.
There's also a sweet romance between Menjou and tough-as-nails-but-with-a-good-heart Dorothy Dell (who died in a car crash not long after this was made) - this is well done. This isn't awesome but is quite well done.
No comments:
Post a Comment