Baby, Take a Bow

Plot synopsis:
After serving time in Sing Sing, Eddie Ellison marries his fiancée Kay and eventually the two have a daughter they name Shirley. Eddie helps his friend, and former convict, Larry Scott, who is engaged to Shirley's dance instructor Jane, get a job as a chauffeur for his employer, factory owner Stuart Carson.
Trigger Stone, who also served time in Sing Sing, steals Mrs. Carson's pearl necklace and asks Eddie and Larry to sell it for him, but they refuse. Private investigator Welch, the man responsible for Eddie's conviction, tells the head of the National Insurance Company he suspects the chauffeurs are guilty of the robbery and informs Mr. Carson about their prison records, prompting him to fire them.
Trying to escape from the police, Trigger gives the pearl necklace to Shirley, who believes it is a belated birthday present. As part of a game, she hides it in her father's pocket, and when he finds it while Welch is searching the apartment, he conceals it in the carpet sweeper, but unbeknownst to him, the neighbor's maid Anna borrows empties it before returning it. Kay returns home, and when she hears the story, they try to open the sweeper. Welch returns and opens it himself, only to find it empty.
After Welch leaves, Eddie, Larry, Kay and Jane search the apartment building for the necklace. When Trigger threatens Eddie with a gun, Eddie subdues him and ties him up, then goes for the police. During his absence, Shirley discovers the necklace in the garbage can downstairs. She brings it to Eddie but instead finds Trigger, who convinces her to let him free. He takes her hostage and climbs to the roof, where he shoots Eddie. Although injured, Eddie manages to capture Trigger. Shirley takes the necklace from Trigger's pocket, and detective Flannigan tells her she will be eligible for the $5,000 reward.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
If this is not considered one of Shirley Temple's more popular movies, it's easy to understand why.First, she isn't the main attraction.
This was Temple's first feature film but she was the third, fourth or even fifth person in here, screen time-wise.
The powers-that-be must have seen the bright future she had, though, and made two more films with her in the same year (1934), beginning with "Bright Eyes," and she never looked back, becoming a huge box-office attraction on her own.
This particular film featured a lot more drama and crime element and that was no longer to be, too, as light-hearted singing and dancing was the ticket...not this sort of fare.
"This sort of fare" meant a climactic scene in which Shirley is kidnapped, carried to a rooftop kicking and screaming for help while her father is pursuing and her mother is frantically looking on, screaming herself.
Hey, that's not a "Shirley Temple film" as we know it.That doesn't mean this movie is all dark or doesn't offer some typically-cute Temple moments: it does.
There is a great song-and-dance number with Dunn, who was good singer in his own right, and a solo earlier in the film.
Will, once again, BABY TAKE A BOW?Except for the presence of Shirley Temple, most likely this film would long ago have slipped into complete obscurity.
James Dunn, Claire Trevor & the rest of the adult performers do their best with the rather tired material, but it is Shirley that one remembers.
Claire Trevor brings an added dimension to the loyal wife and mother, and the ever-hard-luck-bitten James Dunn (A Tree Grows In Brooklyn) is perfect as the ex-con father trying desperately to put his past behind him.
Shirley only has two songs and one nice dance number with Dunn, but does more acting than musical work here, and is quite good at both.
**Some Possible Spoliers**It was 12pm in the afternoon, and the announcer happened to indicate that a film with Shirley Temple was to come up next.
My mother told me to tape the film since she thought that any film with Shirley Temple is a sure winner.I was reluctant, but once the film started going i was rather intrigued.
Yet the adult actors tend to be a little too rigid in some moments of the film.Shirley has to be without a doubt, the person who steals the show in this movie.
There was some pretty good acting by Claire Trevor (Kay) which made the scene believeable.
And the ending was rather sweet and happy (predictable).I really enjoyed watching this film, and the scene with the coffee pot and the beads always gets me nervous.
Shirley's charm surely makes this film worth watching.Rating: 8/10.
This was my first attempt at watching a Shirley Temple movie, though this film was made before she really hit it big and therefore her screen time isn't as much as it would quickly become.
The story instead centers on a likable ex-convict Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) who has harmless fun playing practical jokes on his friends and comes out of jail to marry a loyal woman (Claire Trevor).
Six years later, the couple have young Shirley as their daughter and Eddie tries to hold a job.
Here is where daddy's little girl helps her father out by trying to foil the real crook.It's easy to sense the potential which shines off Shirley Temple during her scenes with Dunn and Trevor, and the precocious little charmer does delight with some mild dancing and her cutesy antics, but this film is reportedly not one of her best.
Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) made a big mistake and ending up serving time in Sing Sing.
However, his lovely fiancé, Kay (Claire Trevor) waits for him and even takes him to Niagara Falls to get married on the day he leaves prison.
Now, six years later, they live in New York City with their little girl, Shirley (Shirley Temple).
Eddie presently works as a chauffeur and even got his good buddy a job with the same company.
On the day of Shirley's birthday, Eddie and Shirley entertain guests with their jokes, songs, and dances.
But, things get complicated when an old, thieving friend of Eddie's gives Shirley a "hot" pearl necklace.
A ton of confusion reigns soon after as Eddie tries to hide the necklace from the insurance man and Shirley believes it is all an elaborate game of hide and seek.
This is a fun movie with a few dark elements, surprising in a Temple film.
Dunn, too, is a stitch as her joking father, who is trying his best to go straight, while Trevor is very beautiful and touching as the faithful wife and mother.
BABY TAKE A BOW (Fox, 1934), directed by Harry Lachman, with its backstage musical sounding title, is actually one taken from a production number introduced by James Dunn and Shirley Temple in STAND UP AND CHEER (1934).
While it could have been a sort of sequel with Dunn and Temple reprising their original roles as Jimmy and Shirley Dugan, father and daughter song and dance team, in a story to what's become of them after making it big on Broadway, with the little girl taking all the bows while her father rests in the background, it's actually a dramatic story with some doses of humor thrown in, about reformed crooks going straight (filmed before as "Square Crooks" (Fox, 1928) starring Robert Armstrong, Dorothy Dwan and John Mack Brown).
For Shirley Temple's first starring role at Fox, much of the plot revolves around future Academy Award winners James Dunn (Supporting actor for A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945) and Claire Trevor (supporting actress for KEY LARGO (1948), with Temple, as their petite daughter, around for moral support.The ten minute prologue introduces Kay (Claire Trevor) at the train station heading for Ossining to meet with the man she's going to marry.
Eddie Ellison (James Dunn), a former crook, having served time in Sing Sing Prison, is being paroled four months early for good behavior.
Welch (Alan Dinehart), the special investigator who caused Eddie's conviction to get Kay for himself, has followed Kay to the prison.
Upon their meeting, Kay makes plans for she and Eddie to marry and honeymoon at Niagara Falls.
As Flannigan (James Flavin) arrives with Larry Scott (Ray Walker) to serve a five year stretch, Scott, who takes an immediate liking towards both Kay and Eddie, and dislike towards Welch, does Eddie a good turn by socking Welch.
Six years later, Eddie is seen working as a chauffeur for the wealthy Joseph Carson (Richard Tucker).
Also released from Sing Sing is "Trigger" Stone (Ralf Harolde), who, unlike Eddie and Larry, has no intentions of reforming.
Eddie and Kay, blessed with a daughter, Shirley (Shirley Temple), make preparations for her upcoming birthday party to take place on the rooftop of their tenement apartment building.
Trigger, who has stolen a pearl heckles from the Carson home, gives it to Shirley, thinking it as her birthday present.
Due to the robbery and the discovery of Eddie and Scott's prison records through Welch, Carson is forced to have dismiss them from his employ.
Learning that Trigger is the culprit, Eddie and Larry have a hard time proving their innocence, especially with the heckles in their possession and Welch hot on their tail.Not quite the formula Shirley Temple production, BABY TAKE A BOW, does offer her, in ballet dress, a song and dance number accompanied by James Dunn singing "On Account of I Love You" (by Buddy Green and Sammy Stept).
A good song underscored during its opening and closing credits, but something that simply didn't catch on as did Temple's other hit songs of 1934, "Baby Take a Bow" and "On the Good Ship Lollipop." Temple and Dunn registered so well together that they were reunited for the last time in their best collaboration, BRIGHT EYES (1934).
Hinds (The Warden); Mary Gordon (Mrs. O'Brien); and Guy Usher (McLane, Captain of Detectives).1934 was a busy year for Shirley Temple, having more film releases than any other year.
As for BABY TAKE A BOW, it has become unfamiliar and least known to modern audiences due to its unavailability, having never become part of the "Shirley Temple Theater/ Playhouse" on commercial television during the 1960s and 70s.
Not until the mid to late 1980s has BABY TAKE A BOW surfaced, becoming a welcome addition to the Shirley Temple/20th Fox movies placed on cassette by Playhouse Video and distribution on cable television (Disney Channel (early 1990s), American Movie Classics (1996-2001), Fox Movie Channel) and later on DVD either in colorized or original black and white formats.
Regardless of BABY TAKE A BOW's reputation as being one of Temple's lesser efforts, due to plot focusing more on adults (especially the annoying Dinehart) than to her character, along with some gun battles not used in her latter films, overall, a welcome addition plus a look back into the early career of the biggest, littlest star, Shirley Temple.
In fact, about a half dozen Temple films all came out about that time.
Perhaps they meant the first full-length film where she received top-billing--which is the case with "Baby Take a Bow".The film begins with Eddie (James Dunn) getting out of prison and marrying his girlfriend, Kay (Claire Trevor).
But, into their idyllic world comes a serious problem--there is a jewel robbery and when their employer finds out that Eddie and his friend, Larry, both had been to prison, they are fired.
A dogged cop, Welch, is convinced one or both of these men did it and he spends the rest of the film trying to return them to Sing Sing.
Also, there is a song near the beginning that Shirley and James Dunn sing--and it's so sickeningly sweet that diabetics in the audience are encouraged to stop the film to check their blood sugar!
Prison movies were a staple in that era because the system was considered to be inherently unjust, and good men could easily be sent to the bighouse, with cops usually depicted as incompetent or cruel.Its part adventure/comedy, with stolen jewels, hidden and with open slapstick toward the end.And it partly a show movie with a song and dance number, apparently recreated from a previous film.The film itself is dull and cheap, but the idea behind it is wild.
Baby Take A Bow is based on a Broadway play called Square Crooks and ran a respectable 150 performances in 1926 and also was a silent film in 1928.
A couple of guys played by James Dunn and Ray Walker are trying to go straight and are succeeding.
Dunn and Walker are married to Claire Trevor and Dorothy Libaire respectively.
But Dunn and Trevor have that little bundle from heaven named Shirley Temple.Both these guys face a pair of menaces.
And Alan Dinehart who is a private detective who would like to become a real cop, but they won't have him.
77 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Ex-criminal Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) has a hard time going straight.NOTES: Shirley Temple, acknowledged as the best juvenile performer of 1934, received a miniature statuette from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Awards Ceremony at the Biltmore Hotel, 27 February, 1935.The stage play opened on Broadway at Daly's on 1 March 1926, and ran a surprisingly successful 144 performances.
The play was directed by Albert Bannister, and produced by Bannister in association with Elmer Powell.COMMENT: Although this was Shirley's 23rd film, it was her first starring vehicle at Fox, following her huge success on loan-out to Paramount for "Little Miss Marker".
William O'Connell's photography does bring off a few attractively sinister effects with cross shadows on the faces of Ralf Harolde and Alan Dinehart, but otherwise the film has little visual appeal.
In short, the Shirley Temple presented here isn't half as attractive as she was to become in her succeeding Fox pictures.
The first few films that Shirley made showed her as a cute, talented youngster in situations were the adults were adults and made most of the decisions.
I prefer the earlier films (when I watch Shirley Temple at all) when she was just a cute kid who was treated like a child by the adults around her.Kay (gorgeous Claire Trevor) is going to Ossining to meet Eddie Ellison who has just got out of Sing Sing.
There is a nice scene at Niagara Falls where Eddie and Kay plan their future.
(Dunn and Trevor made a couple of films together and have an easy camaraderie).
Six years later Eddie is a chauffeur at the wealthy Carson residence and he has also secured his friend Larry Scott a job.
Adorable Shirley Temple plays their little daughter Shirley, who we first meet at a dancing school where she is showing her mother a new step she has learned.
There are several scenes involving Shirley doing cute things (playing hide and seek with her daddy, doing morning exercises with her mother).The main story is more dramatic than the usual Temple fare with Ellison and Scott trying to go straight.
That night there is a big rooftop party for Shirley and she (looking completely gorgeous in a frilly pink party dress) and Eddie steal the show with a catchy and comic rendition of "On Accounta I Love You".
It is clear that she and Dunn had great chemistry together.Trigger sees Shirley playing in the street and gives her the pearls to hide - she instantly starts a hide and seek game with her unsuspecting dad, his friend Larry and Welch.
There is an exciting chase across the rooftops with Trigger kidnapping little Shirley.
(Is this the first and only time Shirley was manhandled by a baddie???) There is a shoot out with Eddie hurt but in the end triumphant.You somehow know Claire Trevor is destined for better things.
James Dunn as the father, I always enjoy seeing with Shirley.
It reminded me of a toddler Shirley in her child prostitute scene in one of her earlier films -- satiric parody maybe like Polly Tix in Washington.
She seems noticeably younger than in "Bright Eyes", released at the end of that year, being treated more like a young child than a little girl with grown up ambitions.
The screenplay is based on the '27 play and '28 silent film titled "Square Crooks", which lacked Shirley's character.
This title may seem self-contradictory, but the point is that 2 men(Eddie Ellison and Larry Scott), who spent time in prison for some undisclosed crimes are trying to go straight after their release.
Ellison earns a recommendation from the prison superintendent, and has a beautiful girl(Claire Trevor, as Kay) waiting to marry him upon his release.
Cigar-chomping detective Welch(played by 'heavy' Alan Dinehart) has a fixation on trying to catch or frame Eddie relating to some crime, so that he can send him back to prison.
Although not much emphasized, one scene early in the film suggests that Welch is particularly keen to make normal life for Eddie impossible because he has long lusted for his wife Kay, beginning with his involvement in Eddie's conviction.
But, Kay hates Welch....Their second nemesis is 'Trigger' Stone(Ralf Harolde), an acquaintance of Eddie, who was sent to Sing Sing the same day that Eddie was released.
In contrast to Eddie and Scott, who got out early for good behavior, Trigger brags about what mischief he will do when he gets out.
When he gets out, just before Shirley's birthday, he heads back to NYC, steals a valuable necklace from the employer of Eddie and Scott (the Carsons), then looks for Eddie and Scott to help him 'dispose' of the necklace.
But they refuse.Before Trigger's release, we've spent some time getting acquainted with Shirley: the adorable young daughter of Eddie and Kay, seeing the love between her and her parents and between her parents.
Welch now tells Carson about the ex-con status of Eddie and Scott, and that he suspects them of stealing the necklace.
She sings the catchy "On Account'a I Love You" , with Eddie participating in the singing and dancing later in the act.
Next morning, Trigger again comes looking for Eddie and Scott, but spies a familiar detective on the street, causing him to sneak the necklace to Shirley, as a 'birthday present', then disappears.
Shirley slips it into Eddie's jacket pocket, and tries to play hide and seek with the preoccupied Eddie.
Shirley latter pulls it out of the coffee pot, and gives it to Eddie when Welch is searching another room.
All, including Welch, have quite a time trying to find the necklace in the retrieved sweeper.
Detectives arrive, and Shirley pulls the necklace out of Trigger's pocket.
Welch arrives and claims that Eddie and Scott had the necklace all the time.
Obviously, she had great rapport with James Dunn, as again shown in "Bright Eyes", as well as with Claire Trevor, as her mother.
..It's true that Dunn and Ray Walker, as Scott, seem far too nice to have been crooks, in contrast to Trigger's sinister demeanor..
Ex-con James Dunn has been sacked from his job as a chauffeur because of a jewel heist at his employer's.
But the real thief makes sure that his daughter (Shirley Temple) ends up with them so the police won't catch him with the stolen goods.
Having sung the song "Baby, Take a Bow!" in the same year's "Stand Up and Cheer!" (a homage to surviving the depression), Temple rose to top billing with this film.
Dunn and his frequent co-star Claire Trevor play her loving parents and are just as good.
This film gets a little agitating when Dinehart is on screen; He invades Dunn's house without a search warrant, and they simply let him go about his business.
Dunn and Temple perform a cute little number (a must in one of Shirley's films) that is the highlight of the film.