LITTLE MISS MARKER

US, 1934, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell, Charles Bickford, Lynne Overman, Frank Mc Glynn Snr., Willie Best.
Directed by Alexander Hall.

Little Miss Marker was the first of several versions of this Damon Runyon story about a sombre bookie, Sorrowful Jones, and the little girl who was left as the mark for a bet by her father who then kills himself. It is peopled by Damon Runyon's assorted offbeat characters especially associated with the world of gambling and gangsters. The other versions of the story were Sorrowful Jones with Bob Hope, Forty Pounds of Trouble with Tony Curtis and Little Miss Marker with Walter Matthau, Julie Andrews and Tony Curtis.

This film is a Shirley Temple vehicle, one of her earliest. She is precocious and cute. Adolphe Menjou is an offbeat casting for Sorrowful Jones. Direction is by Alexander Hall who made a number of American comedies and romances in the '30s and '40s.

1. A pleasing Shirley Temple vehicle? Piece of 30s Americana?

2. Brief running time, black and white photography?

3. Damon Runyon and his world? Types, betting, the numbers, night? clubs? A comment on this American tradition?

4. Sorrowful Jones and his style, relationship with Steve, love for Bangles, friendship with Regret? Type, tough? His relationship with others? Sorrowful? Tight with money? The law? The scam? Left with a little girl? His warming to her? Paying for the clothes, protecting and saving her? With Bangles? The happy ending?

5. Shirley Temple's presence and style, cute, precocious, with her father, her mother's death, staying with the bookies, not wanting to be a sissy, being tough, liking the horse? Her love of the stories of the Round Table and naming the various characters, their Party and dressing up as the Knights of the Round Table? The injury, the blood transfusion, her being adopted?

6. Sorrowful and his change, love for Bangles, her song (joined in by Shirley Temple), Bangles helping, the clothes, money, relationship with Steve? The police?

7. Steve, the races, the plan, the bets, tough action, Bangles? Giving his blood ? and his final change of heart?

8. Regret and the other people around the bookies? Regret and telling the truth, his drunk scene? Warm-hearted?

9. A gallery of offbeat and humorous American characters?