Temple Tuesday: Anatomy of a Deleted Scene

Since the advent of home media, the ability to watch deleted scenes from contemporary movies has become commonplace. Most DVDs/Blu Rays have a few deleted scenes as extras, often with director commentary explaining why it was decided to remove that particular scene before the film’s release. Classic Hollywood enthusiasts classify deleted scenes as some of the most coveted pieces of “lost film,” turning the search for them into something akin to the Holy Grail. While the actual scenes may never be found again (due to the film studios literally trashing them or because of the flammability of nitrate film), it is often easy to find little remnants of these never before seen gems. Today’s post presents an example from Shirley Temple’s 1938 film, “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” As always, The Colonel (aka Melissa) has done the majority of the legwork in piecing together what this deleted scene may have included. 

According to the script dated October 2, 1937, the day after she arrives at the farm, Rebecca wanders into the farmyard to explore and spies a hen with her brood. Delighted, she picks up two of the chicks and turns to the mother hen, who is protesting violently. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Hen, I won’t hurt your babies.” She rubs the chicks against her cheek before setting them down on the ground. At that point, she hears a squeal and the script continues with the pig-caught-in-the-fence scene. 

Often, promotional photos taken during the filming of a movie are used even if the scene that they represent was removed before release. The still shown above goes along with the scene Melissa has described. The photo below was taken from the trailer for “Rebecca.” Back in the day, it was commonplace to find little snippets of deleted footage used in those promotional trailers.



Based on the studio numbering of their stills, this shot of Shirley with costar Gloria Stuart would have been next.



Back to the script:

When Rebecca chases after the pig, she encounters Homer and Aloysius dancing together and introduces herself. Homer describes himself as a caretaker and Rebecca isn’t sure what that is. He says he’s practically the boss but he can do a week’s worth of work in one day and then spend the other six resting and playing his kazoo. She asks Aloysius if he’s a caretaker and he says he’s a hired hand but he can dance too. Homer starts playing “Old Straw Hat” on the kazoo and Aloysius starts to dance. 



Here is another frame of film from the trailer showing Bill Robinson from this deleted sequence:



This leads to a production number with twelve scarecrows. They disappear by the end of the number and the three are left to dance alone.

This is a bit of a mystery. For the actual deleted sequence, perhaps the twelve scarecrows were replaced with four farmhands, as seen in the publicity stills shown below:







Aunt Miranda comes out and tells Rebecca she should be ashamed of singing “trashy songs.” Homer tells Aunt Miranda that it wasn’t Rebecca’s fault that they were singing. 



Below is another frame from the trailer, illustrating Aunt Miranda’s arrival on the scene:



Fingers crossed that some of these classic gems will reappear one day!

See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.