- This article addresses the movie...for the plant disease, see curly top.
Curly Top (1935) is a 20th Century Fox musical feature film starring Shirley Temple, John Boles, and Rochelle Hudson in a tale about an orphan's adoption by a wealthy gentleman. The screenplay by Arthur J. Beckhard and Patterson McNutt bears similarities to Jean Webster's novel Daddy Long Legs. The film was directed by Irving Cummings, produced by Winfield R. Sheehan, and critically well-received. The several musical numbers include Animal Crackers in My Soup.
Plot and cast
Elizabeth Blair (Shirley Temple), a child of 6 or 7 years, is an inmate at the Lakeside Orphanage, a dreary place supervised by two decent but somewhat dour matrons (Jane Darwell and Rafaela Ottiano). Elizabeth's older sister Mary (Rochelle Hudson) works in the kitchen, laundry, and dormitory; Elizabeth's trick pony and duck are housed in the yard.
One day, a group of trustees led by tetchy Mr. Wyckoff (Etienne Girardot) descend on the orphanage for a tour of inspection. Elizabeth is caught mimicking Wyckoff and threatened with reprimand but young, rich, and handsome trustee Edward Morgan (John Boles) intervenes. He takes a liking to Elizabeth and eventually adopts the youngster, nicknaming her "Curly Top".
Elizabeth and her sister take up residence in Morgan's luxurious South Hampton beach house where his kindly Aunt Genevieve (Esther Dale) and his very proper butler (Arthur Treacher) are charmed by the two. Elizabeth has everything a child could want - including a pony cart and silk pajamas. Elizabeth's story is essentially over at this point.
The remainder of the film follows Morgan's love interest in Mary, who, believing her benefactor cares not for her in a romantic way, becomes engaged to naval officer Jimmie Rogers (Maurice Murphy). Mary later breaks the engagement when she realizes she doesn't truly love Jimmie. Morgan then declares his love and the two unite.
Musical numbers
Musical numbers are introduced into the film with the simple device of having characters Mary Blair and Edward Morgan being both composers and pianists. In an early scene in the orphanage dining room, for example, Mary accompanies Elizabeth on the piano as the child sings the film's most famous number "Animal Crackers in My Soup"; Mary later tells Morgan she composed the song. In an early scene, Morgan composes and sings "It's All So New to Me" at his piano, and, in a later scene, he sings his newly-composed "Curly Top" to Elizabeth as she sits atop his grand piano. In a charity bazaar scene that doesn't move the action of the story forward, Mary warbles "The Simple Things in Life" to her ukelele before Elizabeth presents a lengthy display of her singing, dancing, acting, recitation, and rope-skipping talents to the song "When I Grow Up". Ray Henderson composed all the film's tunes with Ted Koehler, Edward Heyman, and Irving Caesar providing lyrics. Snippets of Rock-a-Bye Baby are heard in a dormitory scene and the traditional wedding marches of Wagner and Mendelssohn are heard in the charity bazaar scene. The film's long first scene (set on a cold, rainy night at the orphanage) is almost wordless, with background music somewhat suggesting the icy third act opening of Puccini's La Bohème.
Reception
Andre Sennwald noted in the New York Times of August 2, 1935 ,"So shameless is [the film] in its optimism, so grimly determined to be cheerful, that it ought to cause an epidemic of axe murders and grandmother beatings...Shirley herself, far from showing signs of deterioration or overwork in Curly Top, actually hints in her work at an increased maturity of technique. Her remarkable sense of timing has never been revealed more plainly than in the song and dance scenes in her new film, and she plays her straightforward dramatic scenes with the assurance and precision of a veteran actress. With all this, she has lost none of her native freshness and charm.[1]
See also
References
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