In the 1936 film, “Poor Little Rich Girl,” Shirley plays Barbara Barry, a lonely motherless child who is left in the care of her nanny, nurse, and butler, while her father is off making millions at his soap company. The above publicity still shows Shirley’s character reading a large book. One of the initial plot points is that Barbara is fascinated with the Betsy Ware book series, detailing the fictional girl’s adventures. This is what inspires Barbara to “run away” from her strict nanny (Sara Haden) while assuming Betsy’s identity, which leads to her own adventures. Zooming in, we can see the chapter Shirley/Barbara is looking at is called “A Visit to Duck Pond,” and includes the characters of Ted and Mrs. Duck. Is this from a real book?
Jane Darwell plays Shirley’s nurse. This publicity still shows her character reading to Barbara from the same book.
This recently acquired still gives a good clear view of the book cover, along with what look like multiple copies of the same book piled on the little girl’s headboard. Just in case the book gets dirty, I guess.
The cover:
I did my usual internet search but turned up nothing. My assumption is that this cover was just a prop, created for the film, especially since no author information is shown on the cover. The chapter shown in the first photo…that could be from an actual book that was wrapped in the prop cover. All assumptions…until someone proves me wrong! In the meantime, if you like the pajamas Shirley is wearing, if you had a time machine, you could have visited your local department store and bought a pair with the slippers she is modeling below:
The pajamas were manufactured by Kaufman Brothers and the slippers by Restful.
See more “Poor Little Rich Girl” photos at my main website.
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