As soon as she hit the silver screen, Shirley Temple was known for both singing and dancing, as seen above in “War Babies” (1932). In “Miss Annie Rooney” (1942), her first teenage romantic role, it was only natural that Shirley’s footwork kept up with the times. Below, she can be seen getting coached by choreographer Nick Castle and costar Dickie Moore.
Fortunately for Dickie, for this jitterbug dance sequence he was able to get by with just standing still while Shirley did all the work.
Later in the film, wrong-side-of-the-tracks Annie (Shirley) finds favor with the rich kids by teaching them how to cut a rug. “Drizzlepuss” Stella Bainbridge (June Lockhard) refuses to join the fun and stands off to the right.
When Shirley returned to the screen a little over a year later in David Selznick’s “Since You Went Away” (1944), the producer was adamant against Shirley doing any singing or dancing. According to publicity of the time, the movie “…definitely is not ‘another Temple picture.’ It is based on a series of letters written by Margaret Buell Wilder, Dayton, Ohio, newspaper-woman and mother of two teenaged daughters, to her husband in the Army. It is the every-day story of their problems and efforts to make ends meet by taking in boarders. And it is definitely not another Temple role. Shirley plays a straight dramatic part. No dancing and no singing.” In one of his famous memos, Selznick wrote, “I’m anxious to get the accent off this as a Temple vehicle and start hammering away at its tremendous cast.” Selznick would even go so far as to admonish Shirley against singing and dancing on her War Bond Tours. What a fink! Below is Shirley with costar Claudette Colbert who played her mother, Anne Hilton.
As in Selznick’s “Gone with the Wind,” a military dance plays a central part to the story of the film. Here, Jennifer Jones (playing Shirley’s older sister) arrives to the thrill of the soldiers who get a temporary break from World War II to dance with some pretty girls.
Shirley is not even in this scene at all; instead, the focus is on the romantic leads (Robert Walker and Jones) and their chaperones, Colbert and Joseph Cotten, who plays a close friend of the Hilton family.
According to the AFI website, the hangar dance was shot in a reproduction of an Army aviation hangar that encompassed two sound stages, over 20,000 sq. ft. of floor space and utilized 100 electricians. Below, director John Cromwell coaches Cotten and Colbert as they dance and recite their dramatic dialogue.
Colbert and Cotten rest between takes:
With Cromwell watching at right, Jones and Walker (married at the time the film was being made) perform their scene:
Silver Screen Magazine shot a series of dance photos during filming of the movie. From their publicity blurbs:
Jitterbugs Elsie Peritz and Jack Arkin warm up their motors, so to speak for an aerial take-off in the hangar dance sequence of “Since You Went Away,” first picture made by David O. Selznick since his Academy Award winning “Gone with the Wind” and “Rebecca.”
Peritz also had an uncredited role in the Robert Benchley Paramount Technicolor short, “Boogie Woogie” (1945). Arkin had a few small uncredited roles, including the Judy Garland film, “The Clock” (1945) and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944) where he also danced the Jitterbug.
Below: Jack gives a spin and—oops!—we got something in our eye, so we didn’t see that.
Now Elsie is really getting up in Hollywood. The lady in the background, if she had it to do over again, would never learn how to knit but would concentrate on jitterbugging, as Elsie has, so that she too could be the life of the party.
Don’t feel bad for Shirley; she continued to dance for her fans, including in Central Park with former dance partner and close friend, Bill Robinson, Summer 1944:
She gave Franchot Tone Jitterbug lessons in “Honeymoon” (1947):
In the 1970’s, Shirley performed the Jitterbug with talk show host Mike Douglas. I have yet to find a clip of it on YouTube. From what I recall she was magnificent!
See more “Since You Went Away” photos at my main website.
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