Temple Tuesday: My Little Pony

In the 1935 Shirley Temple film “Curly Top,” our curly-haired girl leaves the orphanage and strikes it rich with her adopted father...who ends up marrying her sister (that’s an entirely separate post topic, folks!). One of the many items he buys for her is a Pony Cart. The above still shows Shirley, her sister (played by Rochelle Hudson), and her ultra-rich adopted father, Edward (John Boles) cavorting around the beach house in the $167.50 Pony Cart. Of course the film shows the bill of sale; how else would the Depression-era audiences know that a fortune was being spent?!?

And to think Shirley started the film rescuing her poor little pony from the rain, sneaking him into the dormitory to dry off.

20th Century-Fox attempted to show some economy in Shirley’s 1935 film, “The Littlest Rebel.” The very same pony cart was featured in an alternate ending scene that wound up on the cutting room floor. The photo below shows Shirley on her way to celebrate the release of her father from the Yankee jail, thanks to President Lincoln. In the finished film, the pony cart is not seen; so much for economy.

Five years later, Shirley and Johnny Russell were arguing over who would get the better pony in “The Blue Bird”:

I’m surprised the Cart wasn’t brought out of the mothballs for another appearance!

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.