THE LITTLEST REBEL
US, 1935, 70 minutes, Black and white.
Shirley Temple, John Boles, Jack Holt, Karen Morley, Bill Robinson, Guinn Williams, Willie Best, Frank Mc Glynn Snr.
Directed by David Butler.
The Littlest Rebel was one of Shirley Temple's most popular films. With a Civil War setting, it shows a home and plantation in the South, its elegant way of life, the slaves - but with a happy relationship between black and white. However, in the middle of Shirley's party, Fort Sumpter is attacked and the Civil War breaks out. Her father becomes a scout for the Confederates, the Union take over the home and burn it down. This has an adverse effect on the family, especially the mother who becomes ill and dies. An amiable Union officer gives Shirley's father his uniform and a pass to get him through Union lines to Richmond. However, they are recognised and caught. Both are arrested and sentenced to death. Shirley, with her black Uncle Billy, sing and dance in the street and get enough money to go to Washington where they have an interview with President Lincoln. All ends well.
While the film echoes the limitations of black-white relationships even up to the '30s, especially with seemingly patronising presentation of black actors (Bill Robinson as Uncle Billy, Stepin Fetchitt as a bug-eyed servant), the film nevertheless has Shirley in solid relationships with the slaves and the black actors.
Shirley gets the chance to sing and dance with Bill Robinson as well as some songs of her own. She also has some dialogue about war and slaves. And the scene with Abraham Lincoln, Shirley sitting on his knee and their sharing an apple, is a piece of patriotic sentiment. The film was directed by David Butler, director of many comedies and musicals through the '40s and '50s.
1.The popularity in its time of this Shirley Temple film? In later decades?
2.Black and white photography, the atmosphere of the South, the mansion, the countryside? The collage of war sequences? Washington? The musical score, the traditional songs?
3.The title, the focus on Shirley, the South and the Civil War?
4.Virgie and her precocious style, age 6? Her party, the dancing? Love for her parents? For Uncle Billy and for the slaves? The outbreak of the war and its effect? Her father's absence? Her mother's illness? The coming of the Union soldiers, Captain Morrison and the search for her father? Her defiance of him with the slingshot, singing? Her charming him? The brutal soldier and her hiding with the boot polish? His pushing her mother? Her father's return, her mother's death? Her father telling her to think of death as beautiful and the mother going away? His hiding in the roof? Morrison discovering him, the assistance of the uniform and the pass? Virgie going with her father through the lines, recognised, escaping? Her father's imprisonment, her visiting? Her questions about war, friendship with Union children? Uncle Bill, singing and dancing, the money to go to Washington? The interview with Lincoln, explaining the situation? Sharing the apple - fairly? Her return and the happy ending?
5.The Civil War, the slavery issue? The background comments about the futility of war and killing? Slaves and freedom - black slaves not knowing what freedom was? Uncle Billy and Lincoln shaking his hand?
6.The Carey household, the kindly Southerners? The happy black slaves? Participating in festivities in the house? Carey and the Civil War, his uniform, his spying? His return for his wife's illness? Hiding, Morrison helping him, the arrest and imprisonment? Resigned to his fate? The mother, love for her daughter, pushed down the stairs? Her illness and death?
7.Morrison and the Union Soldiers, the brutal soldier and his treatment of Virgie and her mother, his being whipped? Recognising Carey and Virgie? Morrison and his kindness, fairness, imprisoned?
8.Uncle Billy and the black slaves, the young black slave and his digging the hole - and falling in it? The treatment of the black characters - '30s Hollywood style?
9.President Lincoln, genial, the conversation with Virgie? His listening to the situation, carefully asking her questions about her father's behaviour? The sharing of the apple? The patriotic sentiment in this presentation of Lincoln?
10.The popularity of this kind of story in the US of the '30s? Shirley Temple's impact? The raising of social and political themes through the drama, the musical and the comedy?
