MISS ANNIE ROONEY
US, 1942, 94 minutes, Black-and-white (colorised version available).
Shirley Temple, Guy Kibbe, William Gargan, Dicky Moore.
Directed by Edward L.Main.
The main interest for seeing this film is Shirley Temple at the age of 14, making a transition from her little girl rolls to a teenager – in such films as Kiss and Tell, Fort Apache, The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer, That Hagan Girl.
In retrospect, the film seems very dated, paying a lot of attention to teenager slang at that particular period, sometimes a bit incomprehensible, and the adults trying to latch on. There is also quite a bit of jitterbug dance with Shirley Temple more than adept.
There is also an unexpected class division underlining the film. Shirley is Annie Rooney, living with her kindly grandfather, Guy Kibbee at his usual genial, and with William Gargan as her dreaming father, always looking on the bright side of life even as he loses all his money, the furniture is being taken from the house, and his family have nowhere to go.
Annie has a great deal of self-confidence, quite articulate, reading Pygmalion, having intelligent conversations with her girlfriend, going out with the young man whose main preoccupation is his jalopy. When they crash, she is rescued by an uppercrust young man, Dicky Moore, who is charm personified. He and Annie have many outings, great attraction, her teaching him to jitterbug, his inviting her to his birthday party at his aristocratic home, to the disdain of his mother and wariness of his father. It is quite clear that Annie is out of her depth despite the pink dress, her charm. Grandfather and father seem to speak over-deferentially about the rich people implying that they are better because of their wealth and position.
Everything changes when the two jitterbug and everybody wants to join in, even the parents.
Her father has paid money for a machine that can transform milkweed into rubber. Desperately, he brings it to the birthday party and demonstrates it, only to be humiliated, taking Annie home.
With only a few minutes left in the running time, how will it all end happily? In the depths of despair, grandfather and son quarrelling, and he showing a stiff upper lip, the rich man arrives at the house, showing material that has fallen from the failed experiment the night before, and his chemist arrives declaring that there has been nothing like it, it is extraordinarily resistible to all kinds of pressures – and would be valuable to sell to the Army for the war effort. The young boy had sent it to the chemist for examination.
Everything wonderful at the end – a Shirley Temple memento of the times.
