A KISS FOR CORLISS

Tom Tully, Shirley Temple and Gloria Holden

A KISS FOR CORLISS (aka Almost a Bride/1949). Director: Richard Wallace.

In this sequel to Kiss and Tell, Corliss Archer (Shirley Temple) gets in more hot water when her father, Harry (Tom Tully), represents the wife of a much-married man in a divorce action. Kenneth Marquis (David Niven), the husband in the case, hates Harry Archer and begins playfully courting his daughter for spite. Meanwhile Corliss writes fake stories about her involvement with Kenneth in her diary in order to make boyfriend Dexter (Darryl Hickman) jealous, resulting in the engagement of Kenneth and Corliss hitting the papers and Harry having conniption fits!.A Kiss for Corliss has an amusing script, but the problem is in the casting. Temple is fine as Corliss, but I can think of a dozen actors who could do more with the part and be a lot funnier than Tully (who played the role of a neighbor in the earlier film). Gloria Holden as Corliss' mother is most famous for playing the lead in Dracula's Daughter, but again she's hardly a skilled comedienne. Niven's role is completely one-dimensional but he displays his customary charm. Hickman, also cast in another role in the earlier film, takes over from Jerome Courtland as Dexter, and Kathryn Card returns as the Archer housekeeper, as does Virginia Welles as Corliss' friend, Mildred Pringle -- all are fine. Oddly, Mildred got married to Corliss' brother in Kiss and Tell, but seems to be single -- with no husband or brother in sight -- in the sequel. Robert Ellis [Space Master X-7] is fun as the nasty little teen Raymond Pringle; later he played Dexter in the 1954 TV series Meet Corliss Archer. This was Shirley Temple's last film, retiring from movies at the ripe old age of 21.

Verdict: Goodbye Shirley! **1/2. .

THAT HAGEN GIRL

THAT HAGEN GIRL (1947). Director: Peter Godfrey.

"Well, what are we going to talk about now?"

A middle-aged couple, Minta and Jim Hagen (Dorothy Peterson and Charles Kemper), come back to town carrying a baby about the same time as a scandal erupts over a disturbed young lady, Grace Gateley (Kyle [sic] MacDonnell) and her boyfriend Tom Bates (Ronald Reagan). Somehow the whole town gets it into its head that the Hagen baby is actually the child of Grace and Tom, with the result that that child, Mary Hagen (Shirley Temple), has had to put up with odd looks, remarks, and a discriminatory attitude towards her all of her life. When Tom comes back to town, Mary decides to find out if he actually is her father or not. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that while her boyfriend, Ken (Rory Calhoun) wants to marry her, his disapproving old bitch of a mother (Nella Walker) has other ideas. That Hagen Girl is a study of small-town narrow-minded attitudes and is very good at getting across the astute point that men gossip just as much as women do. The problem with the movie is that the two leads, Temple and Reagan, while competent, are so weak that the picture never recovers from the miscasting. Temple plays the entire movie in the key of "pout," while Reagan is simply mediocre, as he was in Kings Row. Calhoun [Night of the Lepus] is handsome, if a little odd-looking; Penny Edwards [Feudin; Fussin', and A'Fightin'] is effective as another gal interested in Calhoun; Lois Maxwell [yes, "Miss Moneypenny" of James Bond fame, but without her British accent] is nice as the sympathetic teacher, Julia Kane; and Kathryn Card, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy, is fun as the termagant school board member who catches Mary being bussed by horny Dewey Koons (Conrad Janis). Franz Waxman's opening theme is lovely, but the movie that follows the credits is quite disappointing.

Verdict: Excellent premise but this never amounts to what it could have. **.

HONEYMOON

Franchot Tone and Shirley Temple

HONEYMOON (1947). Director: William Keighley.

David Flanner (Franchot Tone). the American consulate in Mexico City, is besieged by a young lady named Barbara (Shirley Temple) who has lost her fiance, Phil (Guy Madison of Hilda Crane). David eventually reunites the two lovers but every time he turns around there's a new obstacle to their nuptials. Barbara eventually imagines that she's really in love with David, which doesn't sit well with his girlfriend, Raquel (Lina Romay). Raquel's wise, beautiful mother (Corinna Mura) tells her she was worried that things between her and David were going a little too smoothly. Will Barbara get over her crush on David and will she and Phil ever get married? It could be argued that Honeymoon is more frenetic than funny, but it does have some very amusing sequences, and if the movie works at all it's because of the very good performances of the entire cast, with Tone proving an adept comedian. Not to be confused with Lost Honeymoon, in which Tone also starred. Since Barbara and Phil hardly seem to know one another, you get the impression their desperate desire to get married has more to do with their need to get laid than any genuine romantic feelings. Keighley also directed the far superior The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Verdict: Some laughs. **1/2.

KISS AND TELL

Shirley Temple and Jerome Courtland

KISS AND TELL (1945). Director: Richard Wallace. Screenplay by F. Hugh Herbert from his play.

"I think it's all very dumb."

Teenager Corliss Archer (Shirley Temple of Miss Annie Rooney) is a fickle, rather spoiled young lady, but she knows how to keep her mouth shut -- at the wrong time. This is one of those movies when a whole lot of complications could be avoided simply by having the characters reveal the truth, which would certainly make things less of a mess than lying. Corliss' older brother, Lenny (Scott Elliot), has married her best friend, Mildred (Virginia Welles) but are keeping it secret, with the convoluted result that Corliss' parents think she is pregnant [not that that word is ever used!] by her sometime boyfriend, Dexter (Jerome Courtland of Sunny Side of the Street). Of course Corliss doesn't reveal the truth, even though the fact that Mildred is expecting would certainly jettison any plans her parents might have for having the marriage annulled, something that never occurs to the none-too-bright Corliss. if the movie has anything going for it it's the performances, which are swell, with a spirited Temple in the lead, and good back-up from Courtland, Welles, and young Darryl Hickman as Mildred's brother, Raymond, who thinks everything is "very dumb" (and is right in most cases). Walter Abel also scores as Corliss' often apoplectic father. The maid Louise is played by Kathryn Card, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy. Followed by A Kiss for Corliss in which Hickman took over the role of Dexter. Wallace also directed The Fallen Sparrow and many others.

Verdict: If you can put up with people behaving like nitwits ... **1/2.

MISS ANNIE ROONEY

MISS ANNIE ROONEY (1942). Director: Edwin L. Marin.

"Barbaric! -- But it's fun!"

Sweet little Annie Rooney (Shirley Temple) sort of has a kind of steady in pal Joey (Roland Dupree), who loves jazz and jalopies, but she really flips when she meets the sincere and kind-hearted Marty (Dickie Moore), who invites her to his birthday party. "Where on Earth did you meet someone with that name?" asks his snobbish mother, played by Dracula's Daughter herself, Gloria Holden. Alas, Annie's father (William Gargan) is an out of work inventor with aspirations, and Master Marty lives on Sutton Place, and how can Annie afford to buy the proper dress for such a high-toned address? Grandpa (Guy Kibbee) puts on his thinking cap, and it all works out in the end. The good-natured tone of the piece and the excellent acting from the entire cast help disguise the fact that this is really just a lower case Alice Adams, but it does explore the indignations of poverty with some veracity. June Lockhart plays a snobbish girl at the party and Peggy Ryan is Annie's good friend, Myrtle. Although now in her early teens, Temple had lost none of her charm or acting ability. Moore, Gargan and Kibbee are also perfectly swell. Speaking of swells, Shirley wins them over by demonstrating how to dance the jitterbug.

Verdict: If you don't like this movie "you're not hep to the jive!" ***.

CARY GRANT

CARY GRANT. Marc Eliot. Harmony Books. 2004.

This is a readable if not especially revelatory look at the life of Cary Grant from his troubled early years in England, to his stage career in New York, to his highly successful film career, as well as his involvement with actor Randolph Scott and his four marriages to women. It seems pretty clear to the reader (if not necessarily to Eliot) that Grant was essentially a gay man who, while initially free-spirited and free-thinking and without any special qualms about his sexuality, spent his later years (once stardom came upon him during a much less tolerant period) running from his sexual identity, always eager to preserve his image and the career that gave him so many options, not the least of which was financial. Eliot makes some attempt to explore the man's complexity but despite some details of his long relationship with Scott is less successful keeping an honest tab on his true sexuality. Eliot is not a film historian – most of his previous books were on rock and folk music – so he recycles such ancient canards as John Gilbert not having a voice fit for sound pictures and he classifies Howard Hughes strictly as a heterosexual. At one point he writes that Shirley Temple “had set off a generation of middle-aged men into cold sweats while still a toddler”(!) His descriptions of Grant's looks, appeal and acting ability occasionally border on the poetic but sometimes veer into the pretentious. While the ultimate book on Cary Grant has yet to be written, this is not at all bad for readers who are unfamiliar with previous biographies of the actor.

Verdict: Okay as intro to Grant. **1/2.