Customer Reviews

Stowaway

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

STOWAWAY is one of Shirley Temple's best films, from her middle years with Twentieth Century-Fox. She gets to speak in fluent Chinese and impress with her impersonation skills.

She plays Ching-Ching, the enchanting young ward of two Chinese missionaries who are killed. Ching-Ching is smuggled away to Shanghai by the faithful Sun-Lo (Philip Ahn), only to get mixed up with carefree playboy Tommy Randall (Robert Young) after taking refuge in the trunk of his car. The car is loaded into the cargo of a luxurious ocean liner, of which Tommy is a passenger. Thus, Ching-Ching becomes the 'stowaway' of the title.

Alice Faye turns in a great performance as Susan, another passenger on the ship, traveling with her prospective mother-in-law (Helen Westley). All kinds of misadventures and misunderstandings occur before Ching-Ching ultimately brings together Tommy and Susan. Temple displays her uncanny skill for impersonation with her delightful takes on Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire!

Shirley Temple sings "Goodnight My Love" (later reprised by Alice Faye with different lyrics), "You Gotta S.M.I.L.E." and "That's What I Want for Christmas"; Alice Faye performs "One Never Knows". Truly a delightful film.

The "Format" line in the Amazon description of this DVD states that it is in color and widescreen. Both of these are incorrect. This is not the colorized version and it is a full-frame (4/3) not a widescreen (16/9) image. The DVD case accurately states this so the error is Amazon's.

This does not detract from the fact that this is a delightful movie that showcases Shirley at her best.

It is not easy to classify the films of that phenomenon Shirley Temple. You either love 'em or hate 'em and there is not much in between. For what it is worth, this is one of the better ones and a smash in its day. Shirley plays an orphan in the orient, of all places, complete with Chinese sayings and dialect - all pretty hard to stomach but still impressive for a kid performer. The pluses for this film is that there is a quite exciting story to tell and there are some flesh and blood roles for the adults. Robert Young is a convincing playboy and Alice Faye, emerging at the time from her Harlow look alike days, performs 2 great songs, the signature "Goodnight my Love" which became a huge hit and the stunning "One Never Knows, does One" filmed at the entrance to a moonlit balcony with Faye in closeup. No wonder she became a superstar. Her warm contralto sounds superb and she looks sensational.

The DVD print has been restored and is good but the soundtrack does not seem right with a sort of echoing resonance to it. There are no extras so I would not really say this DVD is great value.

A little girl orphaned by her missionary parents, Barbara (Shirley Temple), or "Ching Ching" as she likes to be called, is a bright-eyed youngster in a scary world. In spite of her guardian's wishes, she is smuggled aboard a boat to avoid certain death. She is robbed, but she soon finds her way to a wealthy American playboy who she dons Uncle Tommy (Robert Young). Tommy takes care of her for a while, but she gets lost and ends up a stowaway aboard a ship carrying both Uncle Tommy and the beautiful Susan Parker (Alice Faye). Susan is engaged, but Ching Ching does her best to get them together.

For the most part, this is a sweet, run-of-the-mill light romance. The love story isn't especially exciting or unique, but it serves its purpose to move the story along. Shirley Temple is certainly the main attraction and she gets many moments to shine. Unfortunately, there are a few moments where her interactions with the adults are too sweet and overly done. For example, when little Ching Ching jokes with Tommy in his car outside of the bar, she says something lame and they laugh loudly together, and the scene feels very forced. These bits make the movie feel like a kid's movie, but thankfully there are very few moments like this.

Buyer Beware!! Amazon has the description wrong. They list it as: Color, Widescreen. It is NEITHER!! I'm glad it wasn't cropped into a widescreen movie, but very disappointed it ain't in color. The video transfer is beautiful. The soundtrack is raspy - especially noticable during the singing. So, if you want a better soundtrack and color, you'll have to get the VHS version.

Good movie, but I was disappointed that it was black and white. I am use to the colorized version which I enjoy quite a bit.

I just wanted to warn others that although I saw this movie in color and the cover picture suggests it is in color, it's not. It won't bother you though, if you're a fan of these kinds of movies. Just comes with the territory :)

The Stowaway holds up quite well,Shirley steals the show just from a charming Robert Young, It's obvious that he and Shirley got along very well.The movie is quite fast paced for it's type ,and the singing of Alice Faye is worth the price of the dvd alone. Thumbs up from me.
Robert Stuart

Shirley Temple is in Shanghai for this feel-good musical-drama-romance. She is an inadvertent stowaway in this story and even speaks in Chinese quite a bit. In addition she relates a few profound and touching Chinese sayings and does a cute song on stage on the boat.

Looking after her are the adults leads: Robert Young (who looks very young in here) and Alice Faye. Also fun to see, speaking of young, is Arthur Treacher, who has some funny lines.

There is not a lot of funny material in here but it's a nice film and definitely good addition to any Shirley Temple collection. I also saw a colorized VHS edition of this, and it was one of the better jobs in that regard, but I'll take the sharper black-and-white DVD transfer any time!

Fox continues to release the Temple films without any real extras; this one appears to be no exception. According to the Fox press release, this film underwent a restoration, which only leads me to believe it must have been in horrible shape. The picture is watchable, but definitely shows it's age. As a departure from the other releases in this series, there is NO colorized version to choose from. For film buffs, this is a plus!

"Stowaway" (1936) Story: Ching-Ching (Temple), a child whose guardians are killed in Shanghai, seeks refuge from the streets in a car's open trunk, only to wake up and find the car on a ship bound for the U.S. The car's owner, a wealthy playboy (Robert Young, known for the TV shows "Father Knows Best" and "Marcus Welby, MD"), is charmed by Ching-Ching, and offers to marry another passenger (Alice Faye) in order to keep the child. When the two adults meet in divorce court, it's up to Ching-Ching to keep them together. Quite a few memorable songs (Faye & Temple on "Goodnight My Love" & Temple imitating Ginger Rogers & Al Jolson in "You've Gotta' S.M.I.L.E."). Faye really shines in this movie, which would be the last time Temple & Faye were paired together, as Faye was already a star in her own right by this time. Features the original black and white film in its original theatrical aspect ratio with English Stereo and English and Spanish Mono and includes English, French and Spanish subtitles. 85 minutes.

Warning for parents: surprisingly, there are some adult situations in this movie, such as divorce, Alice Faye's character being engaged yet flirting with Young, and Robert Young's philandering playboy character (who asks for his checkbook to "buy off" yet another girl who produces a child!). Nothing really major, but children may seek an explanation just the same.

For a better value, get Volume 6 of Fox's Shirley Temple collection, as it also includes "Wee Willie Winkie" and "Young People."