Python Hyena Stowaway (1936): Dir: William A. Seiter / Cast: Shirley Temple, Robert Young, Alice Faye, Helen Westley, Allan Lane: Title not only addresses innocent Shirley Temple accidentally ending upon aboard a cruise ship. It also symbolizes her impact within the hearts of two individuals who only meet with her in the middle ground. Temple is an orphan in China who is wise beyond her years. Robert Young is the young bachelor whom she encounters and eventually accompanies. He is wealthy but good natured and certainly has a tolerance for children. Alice Faye plays the female lead who will predictably end up with young. Problem is that she is engaged to an arrogant guy who is controlled by his mother. Luckily Temple's spirit invades Faye's attention leaving the only link to connect is her to Young. Allan Lane plays Faye's fiancé who has been away until his mother contacts him alerting him to her association with Young. Helen Westley plays Lane's meddling mother who feels threatened with regards to Temple's influence over Faye's affections. Directed by William A. Seiter with a production that works despite a few corny musical numbers that fail to inspire. The one number that does work is Temple's song about smiling and her total confidence as she controls the stage. Not bad for a little tyke. Theme regards the reality of children needing two parents and how they can stowaway love into a promising future. Score: 8 / 10

mark.waltz Ms. Temple is an adorable orphan whose missionary parents were killed as the result of the attack on their Chinese town by a group of bandits. Now her foster parents are at risk too but refuse to let Shirley's Chinese pal (Phillip Ahn) take her to safety. He does anyway, but when she believes he's abandoned her, she leaves their boat to find food. Instead, she encounters wealthy American Robert Young who falls under her spell and takes her out to lunch. She falls asleep in the back seat of his car, and wakes up to find herself inside the car on a cruise liner. Reports of stowaways frighten her, and she hides in the suite of wealthy American matron Helen Westley and her daughter-in-law to be (Alice Faye). Young and Faye are introduced and Westley summons her son out of suspicions regarding Ms. Faye. Will Shirley get the more appealing couple of Young and Faye together? While pleasant overall, I found the movie to be slightly disappointing over the idea that Young's fake marriage to Faye in order to adopt Shirley then divorce would be the ideal way to save Shirley from another orphanage. Shirley has a pleasant musical number, "You've got to be H-A-Double P-Y" while imitating Jolson, Eddie Cantor and dancing to the song with a Fred Astaire dummy while impersonating Ginger Rogers. Faye, taken out of those Jean Harlow roles she was doing in such films as "George White's Scandals" and "King of Burlesque", sings a few songs too, but lacks the vigor of other roles she had before and after. Westley plays a most unpleasant character, even more aggravating than her still lovable Parthy in "Show Boat". Arthur Treacher is amusing in his typecast role of suave playboy Young's butler, while raspy-voiced Eugene Palette is wasted as Young's constantly wasted friend.

Snow4849 "Sparkle, Shirley, sparkle!" Gertrude Temple cried between takes whenever her little daughter's energy flailed. As Ching-Ching, an American girl living in China, Shirley sparkles, all right; she just never dazzles. Little Ching-Ching is full of happy grins and spouts plenty of wise Chinese proverbs, but not once does she break into one of the delightful song-and-dance routines that make Shirley's other films so memorable. She only dances very briefly in this movie, and it is a great disappointment to fans who want to see the tapping that made her such a world famous star.Another disappointment is the absence of memorable music. Shirley's song "You've Gotta Smile to be Happy" showcases her impressive talent for mimickry -- she channels Eddie Cantor and Ginger Rogers, among others -- but her other two songs, "Goodnight My Love" and "That's What I Want for Christmas," completely lack the snap and fun of catchy classics like "On the Good Ship Lollipop" (Bright Eyes), "Animal Crackers in My Soup" (Curly Top), "At the Codfish Ball" (Captain January), "Oh My Goodness" (Poor Little Rich Girl), or "The Old Kent Road" (The Little Princess).What sparkle Shirley does achieve is snuffed by the dreary adult performances. Ching-Ching's rural guardians, the Kruikshanks, and her pal Sun Lo are almost laughable. Alice Faye's character, Susan Parker, is clearly in love with Ching-Ching, but that's about the only emotion she seems to have. Susan has been harboring doubts about her engagement to the very contrived, cardboard character Richard Hope -- largely because of Richard's sickly enmeshment with his mother, played to meddlesome perfection by Helen Westley -- when she begins to feel a budding romance for Ching-Ching's rich, handsome guardian, Thomas Randall. Her choice between the two men is supposed to seem dramatic and difficult, but instead Susan only comes off as indecisive and wishy-washy. In another Shirley film, "Poor Little Rich Girl," Alice Faye displays a natural chemistry with her on screen husband Jack Haley, but in "Stowaway," Susan's relationships with both are Richard and Thomas are severely lacking, and together these three adults manage to display all the passion of a dentist office. Arthur Treacher does add some charming and unexpected wit in his small role as Thomas's butler, but if you want to see the full extent of Temple and Treacher's talents, watch them together in "The Little Princess," but not "Stowaway."

BrianG Shirley Temple was, deservedly, the most famous child star ever. She was a natural, endearing actress, with little of the cloying "cuteness" that afflicted so many of her contemporaries (Jane Withers, Darla Hood, e.g.), and an amazingly talented singer/dancer. Normally I don't mind her movies all that much, and a few ("Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm", for example) I even find enjoyable. However, something went wrong here.It's hard to put a finger on exactly who or what to blame. William A. Seiter was a first-rate comedy/musical director; Nat Perrin was a top comedy writer who wrote for, among others, the Marx Brothers; Robert Young and Alice Faye were solid actors who were more than capable of carrying a picture by themselves. However, absolutely nothing works in this picture. The story (for lack of a better word) is so far out it should be classified as science fiction. Shirley is a street kid nicknamed "Ching-Ching" (!) who befriends Robert Young in China; the two of them wind up on a cruise ship to Hong Kong and Singapore, where Young meets Alice Faye, who is aboard with her fiance's mother. The fiance, as played by Allan "Rocky" Lane--a future Republic Pictures cowboy star--is a wealthy banker who has a mother fixation that would shame Cliff Claven. The film is so full of embarrassing moments it's difficult to pick out just one. Shirley's spouting of witless "Chinese proverbs" at every conceivable opportunity is infuriating; there is a jaw-dropping scene at a Hong Kong version of "The Gong Show" where a Chinese singer does Bing Crosby impressions, and Shirley gets on stage and dances with a life-size (for her) doll that is attached to her shoes. To make a long and idiotic story short, Alice dumps her fiance, she and Young agree to get married so Young can adopt Shirley, then they will go to Reno to get a divorce; however, after the marriage, when they arrive in Reno, Shirley manages to persuade the presiding judge (and Young and Faye) that they actually love each other and should stay married.There. I've saved you the trouble of sitting through this. You're welcome.