Honeymoon

"Honeymoon" is a bad film. It's not terrible, but it is bad--mostly because the humor is very forced and the film seldom entertaining. More bluntly put, it tries way too hard to be kooky.

The film begins with an annoying young lady (Shirley Temple) coming to Mexico to marry a serviceman. However, through a long series of unbelievable and annoying situations (mostly caused by her), instead of the marriage coming off successfully, the diplomat who tries to help her (Franchot Tone) ends up getting in very hot water with everyone--particularly his fiancée who THINKS he's making time with this other woman.

The film is bad--mostly because the studio didn't seem to know what to do with Temple. While she possessed great talent, here they made her character really annoying and shrill--so much so that America's Sweetheart is now an annoying lady who seems to behave like a 14 year-old suffering through her first crush. She is supposed to be a woman...but rarely seems anything like one.

I never was much of a Shirley Temple fan; personally, I always thought she came across as sugary sweet and precocious as a child. In Honeymoon, she's twenty, and playing Barbara, meeting her fiance in Mexico City. Guy Madison is Corporal Vaughn, but they miss each other at the station. and along comes american consul Flanner (Franchot Tone) to help out. Although each time he "helps out", it seems to cause more trouble. and of course, everyone else is determined to mis-understand every move they make! studio regulars Gene Lockhart and Grant Mitchell are here in supporting roles. not to mention the uncredited cast of thousands. For a consul, no-one seems to respect Flanner, and he never seems to mention it, when people question his motives. I guess you have to buy into all the silliness. and clearly this was all done on the hollywood production lot. oddly, Tone made another film called "Lost Honeymoon" the very same year. he made so many films dealing with marriage and goofed up relationships. This one gets pretty silly, with slapstick humor and so many misunderstandings, it could be an episode of Three's Company, for those old enough to remember. More interesting as a historical highlight for Temple and Tone than for the story itself.

Franchot Tone is an American diplomatic officer in Mexico City. He's engaged to Linay Romay and has a bright future ahead of him. Then Shirley Temple shows up. She's supposed to marry Guy Madison, a corporal on leave from the Canal Zone. Only he's nowhere to be found.

Various things happen, including contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and Miss Temple will inevitably fall in love with Tone. This movie flopped hard, and there are several obvious reasons, beginning with Tone. He was stuck in this sort of role at the time, cast as the young man on the rise in his forties, exuding a slightly bewildered air proclaiming he should be doing Chekhov, not this tripe. Edward Cronjager seems at a loss as to how to photograph Miss Temple. Sometimes she looks 12, not yet grown out of her baby fat, and sometimes she looks a pretty young woman in her 20s. Also, she's playing a woolly-minded flibbbertigibbet, always changing her mind, and it's not really attractive.

One player who's spot on is Miss Romay as Tone's fiancee. She knew how diplomats and the people around them acted because she was the daughter of a diplomat, a Mexican consular attache in Los Angeles. With the right connections and talents, she became a singer in Xavier Cugat's band and married into the wealthy Gould family. She died in 2010 at the age of 91.

Frothy, bubbly romantic comedies are supposed to get off the ground and sail into the air with ease. No such luck with 'Honeymoon'. The whole story is a trivial bit of nonsense about a girl who elopes to Mexico City to find her serviceman husband and get married. When a vice consul attempts to help her, he gets caught in romantic complications of his own with a jealous fiance. And that's it.

The slim plot gets adequate performances from the three leads: Shirley Temple, Franchot Tone and Guy Madison. Madison is less wooden than usual and manages to add a likeable personality to his handsome good looks. Shirley pouts and speaks childishly of her love for him until she starts to fall for Tone. It's all very silly and quite predictable. All it does is pass the time in a modestly entertaining way but don't expect anything special. Shirley is even given a romantic ballad to sing but it doesn't sound like her own voice. Since this was made before Marni Nixon got busy, you have to wonder who it was.

Summing up: Passes the time pleasantly enough but worthwhile only for true Temple fans who want to see her as a pretty young woman.

Honeymoon is a sweet comedy starring two very capable actors. Shirley Temple is all grown up here, almost, as a seventeen year old who wants to wed her soldier boyfriend. The two plan to meet in Mexico City, but problems arise with arriving on time. They only have a short amount of time to marry so they want to make use of all the time they have as man and wife. However, absolutely everything happens to prevent that from happening. Temple enlists the help of a man from the American Consolate (Franchot Tone) to assist her, but she causes more problems for him than he could ever imagine.

Temple is certainly different than the little girl everyone remembers her as. She does the same movements with her mouth, but she has matured into a very beautiful young woman. She has a knack for comedy so she excels in this film. Tone equals her. He is older than in his Joan Crawford days, but he has the same sweet face and strong acting talent. He seems to have gotten smarter over the years which enables him to be a dominant figure as well as a funny one.