Miss Annie Rooney

It would be hard for me not to like any Shirley Temple movie.

It's too bad most people think of her as the cute little tyke, because, as she grew into an adult, she just got better as an actress, and in fact became a beautiful woman.

She was at the in-between stage in this movie, playing a young teenager, which was appropriate since she was 14.

As usual, she was adorable. Even as a fan, I will admit that sometimes she relied too much on pouty expressions left over from her very young years, but she also had the ability necessary to portray the pertinent emotions.

She liked dancing, as she wrote in her autobiography (which I highly recommend, to everyone), and she got to dance here, and was a lot of fun to watch.

Dickie Moore, of whom also I am a fan, was just not quite right as the rich boy. He didn't come across strongly enough, but his performance still does not detract enough to lessen one's enjoyment.

Roland du Pree, on the other hand, gave a very strong performance, strong enough, in fact, that I am dumbfounded he didn't have a major career.

He was a very good-looking young man, a good dancer, and a scene stealer, but apparently nothing is known about him, since even his birth date is not shown here at IMDb.

Look for a very young Noel Neill and a very young June Lockhart in the party scene.

The adults, by the way, rather varied in watchability, but, again, nothing can detract much from this very nice movie.

As Miss Annie Rooney, we have Miss Shirley Temple officially reaching adolescence in a Hollywood motion picture. The acceptable effort is a production from Edward Small's company distributed through United Artists. Despite the obviousness of its limited budget, the movie has plenty of merit, though its script could easily have undergone a rewrite to remove some of the more blatant stereotypes about the Irish-American culture.

Guy Kibbee is cast as Temple's grand-pop and serves stew along with an authentic-sounding brogue. However, William Gargan, who plays his son and Temple's father curiously does not attempt to convey the Irishness of his character much at all. For that matter, he does not attempt to convey much in the way of acting, either.

There are some charming moments in this film that make up for the occasional inconsistencies. One such moment is a teen party where our blossoming star dances with Dickie Moore, who has also officially reached puberty in this film. Like Temple, he suffers the pangs of young love in between fits of barely decipherable young folk slang.

Shirley Temple was now a teenager and she may have left 20th Century Fox, but even as a young teen she was busy raising the adults in her life. In Miss Annie Rooney the adults are grandfather Guy Kibbee complete with the brogue of an Irish cop which he was in the film and father William Gargan who has big dreams of hitting it big not unlike Frank Sinatra's character in A Hole In The Head.

A chance encounter with rich young teen Dickie Moore and invite to his birthday party has Temple mixing with society. But Gargan sees it as an opportunity to pitch his latest cause, synthetic rubber. The results are a social disaster.

Just like she did when she was a toddler on up Shirley sticks by her dad or father figure as the picture would have it. The ending was way too much to swallow though. I prefer the far more realistic ending of the Frank Sinatra film.

Still Shirley Temple fans will approve.

Shirley had left Fox and was in a sort of limbo waiting for suitable roles when she did 'Miss Annie Rooney' for Edward Small, her first teen-age role before the more successful one in 'Since You Went Away'. I saw this in the colorized video version and, although certainly not one of her best films, it was passable enough and fun seeing Shirley develop into her "older" roles. A lot of teen-age jive talk (1940s-style) makes up most of the dialogue and the plot is a slender one about a poor girl infatuated with a rich boy and facing disapproval of his friends. Guy Kibbee is enjoyable as Shirley's grandfather and William Gargan and Peggy Ryan do well enough in supporting roles. Shirley's teen-age poise is impressive and she looks charming--but this is a distinctly minor item among her credits, an interesting curiosity piece if you want to compare today's teen-agers to the swinging juveniles shown here. The script is weak, and yet Temple manages to be her charming self. As far as the colorization goes, it's one of the better jobs I've seen.

This film does not deserve the negative criticism it received, apparently even from Miss Temple herself. Perhaps its depiction of amiable teenagers of that era is a Hollywood version. (Unlike today, when teens are shown as cynical, foul-mouthed, pot-smoking, alcoholics.) Shirley is always her delightful self. Dickie Moore is wonderful as a kind, thoughtful young man. It is great to see Shirley again with Guy Kibbee ("Captain January.") The performance from William Gargan, as a loser but well-meaning father, is remarkable. His scene where he invades a birthday party is so embarrassing it is hard to watch. There isn't any singing, but there are entertaining dance scenes. The only problem with the film for me is the predictable, unrealistic conclusion. It would have been better if the writers could have thought of a more creative way to have a happy ending. This is a fun, underrated, very likeable movie.