Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)

Let's be realistic.

Admirable film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Here Shirley Temple is Rebecca Winstead who is looking for fame and fortune. Well, maybe. But mainly she wants to sing. Her stepfather, played by William Demarest, who she calls Uncle, and who takes care of her now that her mother is dead, is the one who wants the fortune. He tries to get her on the radio and she would have been picked, but there was a miscommunication between Randolph Scott and one of his staff. When Randy tells him to find her, while he's going for a country vacation, the guy can't, because Uncle, fed up with taking care of her, drops her off at his sister-in-law, played by Helen Westley, in the country! Everyone in these Shirley Temple films is cranky, until they meet Miss Shirley. Helen Westley is no exception. She's held a grudge for 25 years against Slim Summerville for not showing up on their wedding day, because he got too drunk the night before the wedding. Slim lives next door and tries to nudge his way back into her life. Meanwhile, guess what, Randy is the next-door neighbor, who eventually finds the little girl. Will Helen let her niece sing on the radio? Will they have to go behind her back to do it? Will she ever forgive Slim? Will Randy get married to his fiancée or get smitten with another young lady he meets in the country, costar Gloria Stuart? Does Uncle show up again to take advantage of his now-profitable stepdaughter, since he does have legal custody in the eyes of the law? With the locale switching from New York to the country several times, it didn't turn out to be like what I expected at first, but it was very good, and, as an added bonus, it has Shirley and costar Bill "Bojangles" Robinson dancing. Franklin Pangborn has a very brief but memorable bit as a radio substitute who never gets to go on, until.... If you love Shirley Temple (you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't,) you'll enjoy spending time with Rebecca and company.

Although the film has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm as written, the film is a really enjoyable one with the self reliant Shirley at her best.She has to be because Darryl Zanuck really went out of his way to give her a bunch of scene stealing character players as support for his golden little moppet. Jack Haley, Helen Westley, William Demarest, Slim Summerville all have their moments. Even Franklin Pangborn has a brief scene with Temple as a flustered organ player who is hired by a radio station to provide substitute music in case a live performer can't go on. He muffs his big chance in a hilarious scene.Randolph Scott is a frustrated radio programmer who's looking for a child radio star to be Little Miss America. He hears all kinds of Shirley Temple wannabes and then hears the genuine article. But his dumb cluck of an assistant, Jack Haley, forgets to keep her in the studio.Frustrated Scott goes back to his farm which just happens to be next to where Temple's deadbeat stepdad parks the prodigy. Shirley is now with her Aunt Helen Westley and another cousin Gloria Stuart. When Randy discovers her, his problems seem over.Of course when the deadbeat stepdad William Demarest discovers Shirley is a budding radio star he schemes to get custody of her. But our little heroine being very self reliant is up to the challenge as she is in every one of her films.I'm not writing any give aways but this is a Shirley Temple movie and there's only one way they turn out.

This is one of the good movies that Shirley Temple made because I just love how you get so much laughter out of it. I just laughed like crazy when that one neighbor helped get little Shirley out of the upstairs bedroom and down the ladder to the other house then he got trapped up there because the ladder fell off the side of the house. I just cracked up and laughed because of how many funny scenes there are in this movie. I really laughed when the Aunt came upstairs and found that man in the bed instead of little Shirley. I also got a huge amount of laughs out of one of the final scenes in the movie when Shirley is taken away from her Aunt and how she fakes loosing her voice just to get back around the people she loves.

I thought this was a dandy picture until little Shirley nearly ruined that fine Swedish Landrace piglet by picking him up and darn near rubbing the hide off him. Don't those Hollywood people know anything? You rub up on a baby Landrace too long and you spoil him for his mama, and everyone knows a spoiled pig ain't no good to nobody, especially a Swedish Landrace. After a Chester White their the most delicate hogs there is! Now, you take one of your hardier breeds, like a Berkshire or a Saddleback, you can pick them up all you want. It won't hurt them at all; matter of fact, they like it. But you handle your Landraces too much when their young and you'll never get them back on their mama's teat. They are fussy ones, those Landraces.Otherwise, a dandy picture.