Today’s Temple Tuesday celebrates the upcoming “holiday” of Halloween. Although Shirley is typically associated with all things sugar and spice, nobody liked a good scare better than Miss Temple! While there are no specific Halloween sequences in any of Shirley’s films (that I can recall, at least), she does have a few that could qualify for today’s post. In her early Fox film, “The Little Colonel” (1935), Shirley’s character must reach her grandfather at night to enlist his aid in saving her parents. To get to him, she has a terrifying run through a forest and encounters an owl with glowing eyes. Keep in mind this sequence pre-dated similar ones found in Disney’s “Snow White” (1937) and “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). Shirley was always a trailblazer!
In “The Blue Bird” (1940), siblings Tyltyl and Mytyl (Johnny Russell and Shirley) take a frightening journey through the graveyard with their evil cat, Tylette (Gale Sondergaard), just before the stroke of midnight.
Not wanting to return to her feline form, Tylette attempts to trap the little children in the cemetery… FOREVER!
Later in the same movie, Tylette tries to have the children scared off by arranging to have the trees in the forest attack them…
AND THEN BURN THEM! Instead, karma bites Tylette in the ass and she’s the one who gets incinerated. As I often say, don’t mess with Shirley!
In her private life, Shirley also loved to dress up, such as this costume party at Ciro’s nightclub on Sunset Boulevard, with then husband John Agar. Shirley came as Alice in Wonderland.
For this 1948 party, Shirley recycled a movie costume from seven years before (“Kathleen”), but added a period wig for some Marie Antoinette flair.
Agar most likely borrowed his wardrobe from “Fort Apache.”
In her 1950’s Fairy Tale Anthology series, “Shirley Temple’s Storybook,” there were plenty of witches, but typically they were portrayed by other actresses. The Halloween episode of “Rapunzel” was first broadcast on October 27, 1958. Carol Lynley played the title role and Agnes Moorehead was the witch. This pre-dated her role of Endora in “Bewitched.”
“The Shirley Temple Show” 1960 episode of “Babes in Toyland” allowed Shirley to gleefully play the role of Floretta, the gypsy witch. Shirley relished the opportunity to be almost unrecognizable in her makeup and costume!
I hope you all have a fun Halloween this week!
See more Shirley Temple photos at my main website.
That is pretty interesting to know that the sequence of running through the woods at night and glowing eyes was not a Disney original. It would be fair to assume there was some influence. It may be a trope as old as storytelling itself but to see it on screen? Shirley did it first. I assume Agar is going as Leo Carrillo?
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