TCM gives Shirley Temple a night of her own
The history of movies has yielded a lot of stars, but Shirley Temple is a special case.
As a juvenile, she was one of the most popular and successful performers ever in that age group ... with her ever-optimistic screen demeanor giving joy and hope to countless audience members at a time when the world, and America in particular, had a real need for those during the strife-fraught 1930s. A couple of days past the ninth anniversary of her passing, Turner Classic Movies devotes a night to Temple with a double feature on Sunday, Feb. 12.
The first attraction is 1935’s “Curly Top,” which Temple made as part of one of her four films that year (when she also was given a special Oscar for her young stardom). This release also became legendary for her performance of a song that became a hallmark of her career, “Animal Crackers in My Soup.” The story featured Temple as an orphan considered for adoption, along with her older sister (Rochelle Hudson), by a wealthy man (John Boles).
Concluding TCM’S Temple double bill is the John Ford-directed “Wee Willie Winkie” (1937), which she cited as her favorite of the many projects she made. Based on a Rudyard Kipling story, it features Temple as the granddaughter of an India-stationed military colonel (C. Aubrey Williams) who joins him, along with her mother, and becomes particularly close to one sergeant (Victor Mclaglen, with whom Temple shares a somewhat iconic scene).
Temple’s stock in the film industry saw Metro-goldwyn-mayer attempt to hire her away to play Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” but her contract-holding studio rejected the effort. Though she left the business in the 1940s, she returned for a while and had adolescent roles in such pictures as “The Bachelor and the Bobby-soxer” and “Fort Apache.”
The last major career chapter for Temple was in politics, with several jobs of an ambassadorial nature. However, for many fans of different generations, it’s her work as a child star that endures most prominently ... and at least for one night, TCM will bring that back to the forefront.