SPOILER ALERT! THIS REVIEW MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS!
Curly Top (1935) They'd have to censor out her face as they did her appearance as a gilded Cupid, to avoid all risk of folks finding her adorable. Thanks a lot, Mrs. Grundy, wherever you may be! This little star is a god to those who grew up during her three Number-One-Boxoffice years. Six-year-old Shirley is an orphan again in this one and sings the justly famous "Animal Crackers" song as well as the cutesey "When I Grow Up" (in a year or two or three), and does an inspired tap atop a grand piano. The vignettes of her posing costumed as the subjects of famous paintings, like Blue Boy, were only just okay, while her "hula" on the beach was child-like and amateurish. In this kid's portfolio, that's a big compliment.
Heidi (1937) Shirley is at her peak. This is before she got fat. She sparkles and dazzles and twinkles and dimples all through it. She was such a little professional and so alert to potential damage to her career, that she fought long and hard with Darryl F. Zanuck about the Netherland's "Little Wooden Shoes" number in a Swiss Alps movie. This film is an acting gig for her, not another song-and-dance trip, something she had longed for. Mama Temple worried that Marcia Mae Jones, as the crippled girl "Klara" might overshadow Shirley since she'd been in the business ten years and had 20 screen credits, but they worked well together and later were both cast in "The Little Princess." Good psychology in the script: Independent and self-sufficient Heidi, in efforts to win over the grouchy old Grandpa, continually asks him for uneeded assistance. No adversity is so terrible that it erases her smile for very many frames. Hard not to get a lump in your throat no matter how many times you've seen it and no matter how many versions there are, when "Klara" takes her first steps. Hard not to want a halo over Heidi's curlicued head!
Little Miss Broadway (1938) Must have been a real hair-puller whether to let Shirley's hem-lines down to hide her chubby, waffled thighs or keep them way up there to make her look younger. Anyway, that face and that talent mean that the baby-fat on her does not matter much. In her biography, she mentions more than once the studios keeping her skirts short, but writes of dieting only very casually, so I don't think this was a traumatic issue for her. Mrs. Temple was very protective but I have the feeling that she continually pushed and pushed and pushed, in her own sweet way. She probably told studio heads that she'd tolerate no comments on the kid's expanding girth. Everybody's little star, however, is very convincing in this role. And a buncha really talended "orphans" had names and lines and sang harmonious backup, but got no role-credits, thanks to Mom's protective instincts against any talented tot challenging darling daughter's box-office monopoly. Playing Lil' Orphan Shirley once again, she lives in a show-biz boarding hotel whose principle owner demands its demolition to make way for expensive new apartments. The minority stockholder in the form of the romantic male lead asks for an injunction against this and it's up to Shirley to convince hizzoner to look at the talent residing therein before deciding whether to tear down the venerable Variety Hotel. So a full-fledged Broadway musical transpires right in the courtroom and the sour-faced old judge, tapping his foot and bouncing about on the bench, rules in favor of Shirley and them. Off she goes into the sunset with her wanna-be adoptive parents who rescued her from the orphanage and who vow to get married one of these days. Side-show midget siblings George and Olive Brasno played Variety Hotel residents too and apparently were much smaller than Shirley, even at that age.
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