Curly Top

1935
G
1h 15m

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

2.1K

YOUR RATING

Shirley Temple and John Boles in Curly Top (1935)

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Family Musical Romance

Wealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister Mary and arranges to adopt both under the alias of "Mr. Jones." As he spends more time with them,... Read allWealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister Mary and arranges to adopt both under the alias of "Mr. Jones." As he spends more time with them, he soon finds himself falling in love with Mary.Wealthy Edward Morgan becomes charmed with a curly-haired orphan and her pretty older sister Mary and arranges to adopt both under the alias of "Mr. Jones." As he spends more time with them, he soon finds himself falling in love with Mary.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

2.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 nomination

Videos1

Clip 2:13

Curly Top

Photos44

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
This was the first film to pair Shirley Temple with Arthur Treacher; they would appear together in three more movies.

Goofs
In the song "Animal Crackers In My Soup" Shirley Temple sings "Monkeys and rabbits loop de loop". The lyric was written as "Monkeys and lions loop de loop" but Shirley sang the wrong lyrics. There are no rabbit-shaped crackers in animal crackers (and also rabbits are not generally part of a traveling circus), but lions are among the animal shapes.

Quotes
Edward Morgan: There's no human problem that can't be solved by kindness.

Crazy credits
The introductory title credit is followed by an extreme close-up of Shirley Temple's curly top. Shirley then raises her head, and shakes her curls, smiling broadly all the while.

Alternate versions
Also available in a computer colorized version.

Connections
Featured in Young People (1940)

Soundtracks
Animal Crackers in My Soup
(1935) (uncredited)
Music by Ray Henderson
Lyrics by Ted Koehler and Irving Caesar
Sung by Shirley Temple with Rochelle Hudson on piano
Played as background music often

User reviews22

Review

Featured review

8/10

Sweetness And Values A La Shirley Temple

This is another solid Shirley Temple film with some wonderful, sweet scenes and lines you certainly wouldn't hear in movies today. For instance: "It's Sunday. Would you like to go to Sunday School? Ohh, I love Sunday School!"

In addition to the innocence, truly nice characters, decent humor and music, what I appreciated was the lack of screen time of the villain. Many movies have some nasty person giving Shirley a hard time. To me, that's uncomfortable, but in this film the villain gets little screen time. Thus, much of the film features nothing but good, likable people.

That list is headed by pretty Rochelle Hudson as "Mary Blair" and charming singer/good guy John Boles as "Edward Morgan" and, finally, good old Arthur Treacher as the butler (what else?!), "Reynolds.".

To be fair, I didn't think the songs were that super, except for Shirley's "Animal Crackers In My Soup," which is a great song. If I recall, at least half the songs in this film were by the adults (two by Boles and one by Rochelle) and, frankly, I'd rather hear little Miss Temple. Boles' numbers and voice are too outdated for today. He has that Rudy Vallee-type 'early 30s voice.

Do not watch this on a colorized VHS version as I did. Shirley's teeth are green and it's distracting. Stick to the black-and-white, especially now that it is available with a good DVD transfer.

Overall, a nice story with lots of nice people give you a warm feeling when viewing this.