Someone ought to do a PhD or something on the role of Shirley Temple in helping develop the image of the American teenager - while we mainly associate teenagers in from the 1950s onwards, during the 1940s she personified the dreamy, boy crazy jitterbugger.... the short of girl who would swoon over Van Johnson and Frank Sinatra during the war.
Her best known performances in this mode were in Since You Went Away, I'll Be Seeing You and The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer - but this really was the first of her teen efforts, as she gets her first proper kiss. This had been a big deal for Deanna Durbin in First Love and no doubt Edward Small, a producer who signed Temple for this film off the back of her flop effort in Kathleen, was hoping for a similar sort of splash. As insurance he threw in Shirley's old co star Guy Kibee to play gramps and used an old faithful story - young Irish girl being raised by widowed dad and grandad falls for a rich boy whose parents don't like her on principle. But it flopped.
Part of the reason, I think, is age. She was around 14 when she made this, and comes across very young - a real bobbysoxer. And all her friends and love interest seem young, too - her car crazy poor boyfriend and the new rich one in particular seem to be acting like they're in Bugsy Malone when they are driving around in cars. There was a line where one of the boys says he's sixteen but they all seem so juvenile there's no stakes.
But the biggest problem with this film isn't Shirl (there's nothing wrong with her performance by the way) it's the character of Shirley's dad, played by William Gargan - he's an irresponsible idiot, chasing mad dreams, making stupid financial decisions ("yeah yeah buy the dress, sky's the limit"), crashing a party his daughter's attending so he can push his rubber, stupidly sticking to his guns about not taking a good job so he can chase his dream.... and the film redeems him with this ridiculous deux ex machina where he becomes a millionaire overnight. It's offensive, dumb, unbelievable and painful to watch.
The dreadful script sets up that the movie is going to be about Shirley romancing rich boy Dickie Moore (the first screen kiss is a peck on the cheek) but then the last half hour or so completely forgets this and becomes about dad and rubber. Characters keep saying the word "rubber" again and again and it drove me nuts and Shirley Temple has every right to be annoyed she was cast in this.
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