Author Archive: Retro

Frank portrays Sonny, who along with his best pal and their tiny friend Mary Lou, played by Temple, decide to try prospecting for gold into California’s high desert region. They want to gain enough money to finance Sonny’s tuition at a miliatry academy which his parents cannot afford. A variety of silliness arises in the short, much of it concerning Mary Lou’s new-found desert tramp friend, a victim of amnesia.

Shirley shines in this frolics of youth short subject. A teenager, embarrassed by his fear of dogs, runs away from home. He finds an abandoned spaniel and immediately, it changes his mind. An enjoyable little film, with Shirley stealing all her scenes as the hero’s lively kid sister. The highlight is the the scene with the fisticuffs, which look impressively realistic.

A doughnut shop in money trouble is saved when the school music class appear on radio to promote the doughnuts. Shirley is beautiful in this funny little film. She is brilliant!

An aspiring actress is rejected by casting, but gets her chance to perform when the star doesn’t feel like performing. The cast of young children are performing adult roles.

A baby burlesque short. Shirely is Madame Cradlebait, Converter of Cannibals. She arrives in the jungle in time to be captured by savages and popped into a big black cooking pot. Can the resident ape boy save Madame in time? Short, mildly amusing, and thoroughly racist. As ever, Shirley is abundantly talented and cute as a button.

One of her first films with the great male child actor Frank Coghlan, Jr. They did three classic movies together. This is a more mischievous Shirley than we are used to seeing. Jealous of the attention her big brother is getting, Shirley disrupts him at every turn, and even keeps him from meeting his new girl! Directed by Charles Lamont.

This short one-reeler features Shirley as Diaperina, heading a children-only cast of three to five year olds, performing in a broad burlesque as the star of a floor show at the “Lullaby Lobster Palace,” dancing and singing “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage.” This song represents the servitude she is bound to in the nightclub. Directed by Charles Lamont, who is credited to be her discoverer.

This is one truly bizzare film! The Baby Burlesks were a series of short films intended to answer the hugely popular “Our Gang” series. Four-year-old Shirley is Polly Tix, a high-priced call girl sent by corrupt officials to influence a backwoods politician. There are racial stereotypes, racy dialogue, and a rather bizzare cake fight.