Adventure in Baltimore

Mild sitcom, from a story by Christopher Isherwood of all people, about a pastor's rebellious daughter in the stuffy upper-middle-class Baltimore of 1905. Though it's handsomely photographed, there's no Baltimore atmosphere here; it could as easily be Milwaukee or St. Louis, and in fact, the strong-family-ties theme, aggressive nostalgia, boy-next-door puppy love, and sleeve-tugging sentimentality play like a less well-written "Meet Me in St. Louis." Robert Young, top-billed and with a mustache and silly hair, does a tolerable warmup for "Father Knows Best"; he furrows his brow a lot and makes pronouncements. (But the height of the plot arc, in which he delivers a give-'em-hell sermon to his hypocritical congregation, is unaccountably omitted from the script.) The only real surprise of the movie is how amazingly uninteresting a 21-year-old Shirley Temple is. She simpers, she searches for her key light to be never anything but as attractive as possible, she tries to convey adolescent feistiness, but her line readings are monotonously alike, and she has no inner life. Nor is it wise to pair her with then-husband John Agar, in what's essentially the Tom Drake role; he's as dull as Tom Drake. The script puts the two through some very contrived roadblocks on the road to love, including a hard-to-believe episode of her unintentionally instigating a riot, a harder-to-believe one of him reading a speech of hers out loud and forgetting to change the pronouns, and an unpalatable one of her lying to him about painting his portrait. I wouldn't even root for such a selfish young miss. RKO must have figured, well, she's Shirley Temple, the audience will be on her side no matter what. I wasn't, and while the denouement is rushed to the point of incoherence, I wasn't sorry to see this one end.

I saw this movie about ten years ago and absolutely loved it! It made me laugh and cry. I have always been amazed when I hear of Shirley Temples "struggle" to have successful movies as an adult. I think she was delightful and had a real gift for comedy. I am sorry her career ended so soon and can't help but wonder what we're now missing out on because of it. I am also frustrated that her later movies are not made available on DVD...at least hardly any. I think people could now begin to appreciate her...to rediscover the adult Shirley, because they'd be able to see her in a fresh way...something they had trouble with years ago. Adventure in Baltimore is a movie that makes you long for the innocence of the day and at the same time cheer for new youthful freedoms. I found myself really involved in her situations and couldn't wait to see what would come next. If you want a great and entertaining afternoon, just hope some channel is playing this movie and enjoy!

Shirley Temple was capable of turning in better performances than "Baltimore" as she transitioned to adulthood, but the script (a flashback to 1905?) and the other actors were not people she could play off well.

Just two years earlier, Temple had a major hit with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant in "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer". In this, the script was sharper and funnier. It was in the present day, focusing on Shirley's growth, and she had the dependable Myrna Loy to work off. Loy, while projecting a solid and comedic presence herself, always went out of her way to make sure the other actors were comfortable with her and with their role. In this case, when an agitated Temple kept showing up for work due to marriage difficulties, Loy sent her a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a heartfelt note, bonding the two actors for the rest of their lives.

Loy was the rock in every comedic group of actors she worked with. She went out of her way to allow the other actors to feel comfortable and do their best work, a proactive behavior she had learned when working with Clark Gable, Melvyn Douglas, Spencer Tracy, William Powell, Clifton Webb and numerous other co-stars.

Loy's steady and dependable acting allowed both Shirley and Cary Grant to be more expressive than the script indicates, making the movie a giant success and bringing Shirley's (adult) acting into the limelight once again. With this freedom, she could be herself and act. The result was a half million dollars for RKO and a runaway hit's publicity for Temple.

In "Baltimore" Shirley has no such attachments and no such freedom. There was no Myrna Loy to make her feel alive and open. The movie doesn't work well because there is little chemistry between the actors, even between Temple and her husband, John Agar, who did a good job with his role. A period piece was not something Temple needed. She was growing up and needed to be seen in the present day, as she was in "Bobbysoxer". Instead, and unfortunately, she is to go through several more scripts that do not fit her burgeoning character, and thus are movie flops, before finally calling it quits.

Shirley Temple had the acting skills to continue making movies, but she needed adult scripts and actors around her who were supportive, like Loy. It's a shame she hung up her shingle and simply quit. All she needed was the right "magic" around her.

After a few successful teen-age roles (and a couple of ill-fated ones), Shirley's uneven career as a young lady was not helped by this routine romantic comedy of the early 1900s in which she plays a rebellious daughter of a minister (Robert Young) with shocking ideas about love. As a crusader for women's suffrage, Shirley seems more petulant than feisty, playing a girl who crusades for women's suffrage. Nice to see Robert Young in his pre-Father Knows Best days. The film has an attractive look with handsome photography and a good feel for the period atmosphere, but the script is too lightweight to carry much conviction. Pleasant enough if you want to see what Shirley Temple looked like at this stage in her career. She had three more "clinkers" to go before quitting the screen.

Her then-husband John Agar wasn't much help--here he comes across as a wooden actor, not well suited to comedy. Pleasant enough film, but just a trifle.

Plot-- A reverend's 1905 family must find a way to adjust to the eldest daughter's instincts for equality at a time when women were denied many opportunities. Meanwhile, Dad may lose his chance to become a bishop because of town gossip over his daughter.

Looks like the misleading title and Shirley's rebellious upstart were meant to provide some edge to her squeaky-clean image. However, the results are what could be expected of the Temple brand—a wholesome little family drama, on the order of Father Knows Best. As daughter Dinah, Shirley manages to keep her feminist instincts within appealing bounds; at the same time, she defies confining norms placed on 1905 women. The rebellious context is carefully calibrated so as to be acceptable to 1949 audiences without offending the values of that later time. Note how in the movie Dinah's desire for women's suffrage is endorsed, but not her inclination for a career as a painter. That accords with norms of the late-40's when women still weren't expected to have careers. Careers would come later in the 1960's.

As Pastor Sheldon, Young is likably bland in the type role soon to define him. More importantly, as the voice of reason and church authority, he gives official approval to his daughter's actions. So the audience knows she's more than just rebellious— she's on the right track. On the other hand, too bad the studio didn't hire a more appealing swain than the dull- as-cement John Agar. But then he's certainly no competition for his then real life wife.

On the whole, the movie tells us more about Temple's career and the social norms of two historical periods than anything else. However, I'm still wondering how this revealing slice of fluff escaped from RKO's dream factory that was then turning out noirs by the dozen.