Miss Annie Rooney

In my opinion, "Miss Annie Rooney" is the best Shirley Temple movie ever made. The movie features a fourteen year-old Annie Rooney(Temple) who meets a young man(Moore) from a wealthy family by accident(literally). He invites her to his birthday party and Annie's family(her father and grandfather) go through many changes to raise the money for Annie's evening gown and accessories. After she arrives at the party, she soon discovers that the fireworks has just begun. Real good PG family entertainment.

There's a scene in "Miss Annie Rooney" that ranks among the most awkward I've ever seen in a movie. Poor high school girl Shirley Temple is at her wealthy boyfriend Dickie Moore's birthday party, having just won over his snobbish friends with her dancing skills. Unexpectedly, her father William Gargan bursts in, determined to demonstrate to Moore's industrialist father a system of converting millweed into rubber. He practically burns down the whole place in the process. The level of cringe is so off the charts that I had to pause the movie to collect myself.

That scene exemplifies the strange divide in the movie. Half the scenes are lighthearted fun with Shirley Temple and her teen gang, the other half is a really depressing kitchen sink drama centered around the constant family crises caused by her dad's impulsivity and flightiness. The upbeat scenes are much better and less contrived, with plenty of 1940s jive talk, jitterbugging and jury-rigged jalopies. There's a nifty swing dancing scene where Shirley really gets to really let loose, although Moore is obviously doubled. Unfortunately, there's a rather silly happy ending tacked on that will make you roll your eyes.

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.

Poor Irish teen, living with her crusty grandpa and unemployed inventor-father, needs a party frock after a wealthy boy she likes asks her to his birthday bash. Naturally, along with a new dress, she'll need a matching wrap and evening sandals, too! Shirley Temple on the wane: she proves not to be a natural movie talent in her teenage years, nor does she seem to connect with this character or with the other kids in the cast (though one can hardly blame her for steering clear of Peggy Ryan's over-the-top Myrtle!). William Gargan, playing Shirl's father--a purveyor of a new technique which turns weeds into a rubbery substance--manages a nice sense of loving desperation, and Temple does break out her dancing shoes in the party sequence. But these teen-trials are completely unreal. This is the kind of penniless movie family with one foot on the street who still manage to live in a large apartment complete with telephone extension in the daughter's room! The film failed to get Temple's career on the right track, and her manner is blasé and indifferent throughout. ** from ****

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.