Shirley Temple

We don’t do Black Friday at our house. I went once. That was enough to last a lifetime. I will not condemn the practice however because I know many that do. We have always used the day after Thanksgiving as a quiet day at home. We eat leftovers especially pies. We watch movies usually a marathon of some type. And we put up our Christmas decorations, at least our tree and my Santa collection.
This year the movie marathon was Shirley Temple movies. The DVD set included her early movies. She was between the ages of two and six. I hadn’t even realized that she had started as early as she did. She did many shorts. Some of them seemed one step up from silent movies.
I was unconvinced that they would keep my techno savvy group entertained. The children of the Spielberg /Pixar generation absorbed in a scratchy, hard to hear black and white production? Would they get the jokes? Would it move too slowly? Would the special effects be too obvious? Were we going to spend the day with the boredom complaints?
I needn’t have worried. We loved them!! Even my action thriller husband sat on the couch laughing out loud at the gags and joke stunts. The baby burlesque shorts were adorable. Staging a bunch of 2yr.olds in diapers to parody the adult world at that time was brilliant. They poked fun at politics, Hollywood, the night club life and more. In one, a baby Pres. Roosevelt kept looking for something throughout the short. At the end he was asked what he was looking for- his reply was “my sanity” To which the 2 yr. old Temple said, “It’s just around the corner!”
That joke required an explanation but it didn’t interfere at all with their enjoyment. As we watched, I could hear all the today’s nay sayers comments in my head. The fact is that these films could not be made today. I’m surprised they can still be sold. There were scenes with 2 & 3 yr. olds kissing, bare bums a few times, a little bit of Mae West style hip movements and toddlers in just diapers, shoes and hats. Oh,my!
My twelve year old daughter kept saying, “They are soooo cute!! Baby kissing is so cute, Mom! Why is it so cute?” My reply was that it is so innocent. I think that innocence was the reason we enjoyed the films so much. The stories were timeless, the acting simple, the stunts believable and the kissing innocent even the adult kissing. I can’t begin to explain how refreshed we felt. We had journeyed back in time to a place where simple innocence still existed. We returned all the better for it.
And let’s face it, a classic is a classic and Shirley Temple was, is and always will be a classic! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?