Curly Top (1935) Director: Irving Cummings

★★★★☆

Curly Top is a classic Shirley Temple film – one of her best. It features one of her best known sing-a-long songs: “Animal Crackers In My Soup.” It was one of the best box office draws of 1935. The plot follows a predictable story-arch and ends happily. The whole film explodes with family-friendly optimism and Shirley Temple is obviously the star. It is a beautiful and pleasant film.

The script is based on a 1912 story called “Daddy Long-Legs” and is actually a remake of an earlier Mary Pickford film (Temple starred in four Pickford remakes).

It tells the story of a young orphan as she and her sister are rescued by an older, wealthier gentleman who is in love with her older sister. He takes them away to live a life of bliss at his Southampton cottage. One of the best scenes in the film occurs when the gentleman is walking around the room, filled with love for Temple’s character, and he sees her face in every famous painting hung around the room. Apparently some of the scenes of the painting had to be shot rapidly due to the paint deterioration on Shirley Temple’s body.