Kid in Hollywood

Seeing those celebrity babies is cute. Seeing them make out is disgusting. That's all there can be said about this movie. I have very bad feelings about this film. If only I would not have seen it...

"Kid in Hollywood" is very much like a pageant that parents of very young school kids are invariably forced to attend. The folks need to tell their little angels that they loved the show and their performance as a tree or sheep, but the truth is that these shows are god-awful and irritating. "Kid in Hollywood" is very much like one of these pageants! However, in addition to seeing lots of untalented kids (and at this point, even little Shirley Temple showed little of the genius she'd show in films), the plot is VERY unsavory...and high on the creepy scale. That's because like a few other early Temple films, she plays an adult-like character--complete with a sequined outfit and singing a torch song!! It comes off as some sort of pedophile's dream film! By the way, if you do watch, you may have severe difficulty understanding the kids talk--and the film I saw was not captioned.

I'm beginning to see why Shirley Temple's popularity was at it's highest during the Great Depression. In this film, the spoof parodies the 42nd Street story when the star doesn't want to perform but Shirley's character does. If it wasn't for the poor quality of the tape, I think it would have been seen. The audio is also poor as well but sound and talkies were beginning to take over the silent film generation. Anyway, Shirley Temple is cute as ever in this film. She rises to a poorly written script but maybe it was acceptable for a ten minute film. It's not bad but it could have been better. Anyway, the theme in Shirley Temple shorts and in the Our Gang series was children pretending to be adults. It's cute but it wears off after a while.

"Kid 'N' Hollywood" is an early Shirley Temple short comedy with a cast composed entirely of young children, enacting adult roles (it was apparently part of a series of such short films). It has some funny moments, but has some uncomfortable parts as well, while also being a bit too cute at other times. Shirley is a young aspiring actress who is rejected by the casting office, but who then gets her chance when star "Snobbo" doesn't feel like performing. There are a couple of funny parodies of Hollywood life, but at other times it is quite uncomfortable to see children acting out some of the less admirable aspects of star behavior.

All in all, an odd movie, and honestly not a very good one, probably mostly of historical interest.