Temple Tuesday: Little Miss Remarkable

In celebration of the release of “Little Miss Marker” (1934) on blu-ray, I am sharing a few behind-the-scenes shots from the Shirley Temple classic. In photo #1, Shirley gives a hug to director Alexander Hall. In shot #2, it would appear that she was making some paper dolls in between takes.



Shirley sits on Hall’s lap as they prepare to do the mush scene with actress Dorothy Dell:



A closeup of Hall and Temple, caught in a rare blink.



A publicity still from the scene they were preparing for:



The movie’s leads gather for a group shot: Charles Bickford, Dorothy Dell, and Adolphe Menjou surround Temple and Hall:



The final scene where tough guy Bickford gives little Shirley a life-saving blood transfusion yields tears from even the hardest of hearts:





Kino Lorber is the company that has released “Little Miss Marker” on blu ray. I was extremely disappointed by their treatment of Shirley’s “Now and Forever” (1934). There was no restoration done to the source material, and the blu ray actually looked worse than the DVD. “Marker” had better source material and is a huge step above “Now and Forever,” but it doesn’t appear that any restoration was done on this one, either. Both movies were released by Paramount originally; the rest of Shirley’s childhood movies came from Fox. Unfortunately, Disney now owns the Fox library and has shown zero interest in re-releasing them on media, let alone doing any restoration. Bob Iger has expressed his desire to get the home media segment of Disney back in action, but Shirley’s films will probably not be a high priority, as the company stays away from putting out older product that might cause any verbal backlash from 1930’s stereotypical characters.



Note: Don’t get rid of your DVD versions of “Now and Forever” and “Little Miss Marker,” as the blu ray releases do not contain the short, “The Runt Page” (1932), Shirley’s first film (above).

See more “Little Miss Marker” photos at my main website.