Although Shirley Temple had moved to a new studio(MGM) for this one-off film, as things turned out, after her glory days as mega star child actress at Fox, she is put in a screenplay where she repeats her Fox running-identity as a semi or real orphan, on the lookout for a substitute mother or father, or both, as in her 1936 film "Poor Little Rich Girl". As always, she is an only child, and, as in most of her juvenile films, there are no other significant age mates in the film, she only interacting with adults.
I note the strong resemblance of Shirley's typical Fox character to that of the comic strip character and 1932 movie "Little Orphan Anne", and strongly suspect that her typical characterization was largely modeled after this popular fictional character, with the frequent addition of a musical number or two.
The film did poorly at the box office. Shirley was no longer the cute, spunky, curly-headed little girl that audiences loved. Now, she is at the awkward age of a young teen, largely cooped up in a large mansion, populated with a number of functionaries, including a nanny, to take the place of her beloved, presumably deceased, mother, with a father so preoccupied with his business that he very seldom has a meal with Shirley's character: 12 year old Kathleen. She seems to have no agemate friends, and seems to hate her nanny, whom she enjoys playing tricks on. She doesn't even have a friendly dog to pal with. Perhaps her only real friend is Mr. Shone, played by the always charismatic Felix Bressart, with his typical low key friendly immigrant persona, who serves as her substitute father, in the virtual absence of her real father.
Hollywood unjustly made the glamorous statuesque brunette Gail Patrick into a typecast 'the other woman': a role she perfectly plays here. On the surface, she seemed the perfect socialite patrician mate for Shirley's handsome, wealthy, father, played by Brit-born Herbert Marshall. Even though Gail was quite friendly toward Shirley, the latter had an instinctive dislike of her. Shirley verbally blamed it on her intuition that Gail was purely a gold digger, with no real love of her father. However, I suspect it actually had more to do with jealousy and the fear that this radiant, self-confident, woman would monopolize her father's limited private time, leaving Shirley in the dust.
Fortunately, Shirley finds a new friend in her new nanny: many years younger than her former hated nanny, and actually only 8 years Shirley's senior. She is newly-minted child psychologist Dr. Kent, played by Laraine Day. She lacks the superficial glamour of Gail, hence Shirley doesn't feel threatened with a siren woman competitor for her father's attention. Hence, it's not long before Shirley is inquiring into her possible willingness to try to bump Gail as her future mother. At first, Laraine denies she has any such interest. She points out that, traditionally, it's the man's role to lead in romantic manners and, besides, she has definite plans to go to South America in the fall. She might have also pointed out that she was 31 years Marshall's junior, in contrast to Gail's mere 20 year difference. On the other hand, Laraine seemed more mature than her 20 years. With additional prodding, Shirley finally gets her to admit that she finds Shirley's father attractive, and that, under the right circumstances, she might even consider marrying him. Well, when it comes to romantic attachments among her adult friends and relatives, we know that Shirley always gets her way, so we now know how the film will end. But, in the meanwhile, her father announces that he will marry Gail. As a result, Shirley runs away, to hide out with Mr. Shone. But, he knows that various people are very worried about her, and gives her away. This sets up the finale showdown between Gail and Laraine.
In her second daydream, Shirley imagines that she is a musical star, and gets to sing and dance a bit. Obviously, part of her singing is dubbed, as she didn't have an operatic voice. Along with a male chorus, she sings the new composition "Around the Corner", the lyrics of which remind us of "Over the Rainbow", in which Shirley imagines that her life could be more interesting. I think it would have much helped if she wasn't such a snob in relating to her agemates.
Due to poor audience turnouts, MGM decided not to give a Shirley a long term contract. Thus, she spent the remaining 9 years of her film career as a freelancer, working for various studios, occasionally in more popular films. She blossomed into quite a cute late teen. Unfortunately, she was too eager to marry, and, at first, made a bad choice, as things turned out.
See it at You Tube, along with some of her later, forgotten, films.
I note the strong resemblance of Shirley's typical Fox character to that of the comic strip character and 1932 movie "Little Orphan Anne", and strongly suspect that her typical characterization was largely modeled after this popular fictional character, with the frequent addition of a musical number or two.
The film did poorly at the box office. Shirley was no longer the cute, spunky, curly-headed little girl that audiences loved. Now, she is at the awkward age of a young teen, largely cooped up in a large mansion, populated with a number of functionaries, including a nanny, to take the place of her beloved, presumably deceased, mother, with a father so preoccupied with his business that he very seldom has a meal with Shirley's character: 12 year old Kathleen. She seems to have no agemate friends, and seems to hate her nanny, whom she enjoys playing tricks on. She doesn't even have a friendly dog to pal with. Perhaps her only real friend is Mr. Shone, played by the always charismatic Felix Bressart, with his typical low key friendly immigrant persona, who serves as her substitute father, in the virtual absence of her real father.
Hollywood unjustly made the glamorous statuesque brunette Gail Patrick into a typecast 'the other woman': a role she perfectly plays here. On the surface, she seemed the perfect socialite patrician mate for Shirley's handsome, wealthy, father, played by Brit-born Herbert Marshall. Even though Gail was quite friendly toward Shirley, the latter had an instinctive dislike of her. Shirley verbally blamed it on her intuition that Gail was purely a gold digger, with no real love of her father. However, I suspect it actually had more to do with jealousy and the fear that this radiant, self-confident, woman would monopolize her father's limited private time, leaving Shirley in the dust.
Fortunately, Shirley finds a new friend in her new nanny: many years younger than her former hated nanny, and actually only 8 years Shirley's senior. She is newly-minted child psychologist Dr. Kent, played by Laraine Day. She lacks the superficial glamour of Gail, hence Shirley doesn't feel threatened with a siren woman competitor for her father's attention. Hence, it's not long before Shirley is inquiring into her possible willingness to try to bump Gail as her future mother. At first, Laraine denies she has any such interest. She points out that, traditionally, it's the man's role to lead in romantic manners and, besides, she has definite plans to go to South America in the fall. She might have also pointed out that she was 31 years Marshall's junior, in contrast to Gail's mere 20 year difference. On the other hand, Laraine seemed more mature than her 20 years. With additional prodding, Shirley finally gets her to admit that she finds Shirley's father attractive, and that, under the right circumstances, she might even consider marrying him. Well, when it comes to romantic attachments among her adult friends and relatives, we know that Shirley always gets her way, so we now know how the film will end. But, in the meanwhile, her father announces that he will marry Gail. As a result, Shirley runs away, to hide out with Mr. Shone. But, he knows that various people are very worried about her, and gives her away. This sets up the finale showdown between Gail and Laraine.
In her second daydream, Shirley imagines that she is a musical star, and gets to sing and dance a bit. Obviously, part of her singing is dubbed, as she didn't have an operatic voice. Along with a male chorus, she sings the new composition "Around the Corner", the lyrics of which remind us of "Over the Rainbow", in which Shirley imagines that her life could be more interesting. I think it would have much helped if she wasn't such a snob in relating to her agemates.
Due to poor audience turnouts, MGM decided not to give a Shirley a long term contract. Thus, she spent the remaining 9 years of her film career as a freelancer, working for various studios, occasionally in more popular films. She blossomed into quite a cute late teen. Unfortunately, she was too eager to marry, and, at first, made a bad choice, as things turned out.
See it at You Tube, along with some of her later, forgotten, films.