A pointless attempt at a feel good musical has the silly premise of a secretary of amusement to cheer the struggling people of the depression. It sort of feels like giving a death row inmate ribeye steak just before pulling the switch. The highlights are the production numbers which includes Shirley Temple and James Dunn performing "Baby Take a Bow", the name of their next movie. "Broadway's Gone Hillbillv", which emulates "Oklahoma!" more than "Li'l Abner" in spite of some snazzy choreography. Warner Baxter basically repeats the same role he played in "42nd Street". Those hoping for a Shirley Temple movie will be sorely disappointed. She has the one musical number, a brief scene and a close-up in the special effects filled finale. A truly tacky scene has Stepin Fetchit confused by a talking penguin who sounds like Jimmy Durante. Aunt Jemima also makes a cameo appearance in the opening musical number. If it wasn't for the camp element, this would rank as a pointless, sometimes tacky bore.

The 80 minute version is the complete film not the cut 69 minute version. I've seen the extended film on TV more than 30 years ago and loved it. If it's still available ( the 80 min. version ) can it be released on DVD? I'm sure there are other admirers of complete Shirley Temple films. The missing scenes has a Hillbilly talking to the incomparable " Steppin Fechit ", whose job it is to locate and sign-up additional novelty acts for his boss Warner Baxster. The Hillbilly commences to sing " Well shes down thar, and I'm up yar...". We see his wife swinging an ax against a tree and taking out huge chunks at a time. Her description is that shes large with a corn cob pipe in her mouth. She calls to him " you who " and he responds the same way back.

Only the scene featuring SHIRLEY TEMPLE singing the title tune is worth watching. Othersise, this has got to be one of the worst musicals ever to come out of the '30s.The script is a mess, the editing is downright atrocious, the performances are flat, and nothing to keep your eyes open happens until Shirley bursts upon the screen with James Dunn and chorines in one of her most charming song-and-dance routines.Believe me, the rest is worthless as entertainment and not even satisfying as a curiosity piece of the Depression era.Let's face it. Shirley Temple became a star despite this mess of a movie and all because of one great number.

STAND UP AND CHEER (Fox, 1934), directed by Hamilton MacFadden, features Warner Baxter as Lawrence Cromwell, a Broadway producer who is appointed by the U.S. president as secretary of amusement to rid the country of the Depression blues. Madge Evans co-stars as Cromwell's secretary, Mary Adams, and Arthur Byron as John Hartly, a corrupt politician who wants to keep the Depression going so he can stay in political power, but fails in trying to bribe Cromwell to give up his position. An enjoyable Depression musical which reflects upon the people and the times, is noted virtually as a Shirley Temple movie. With Baxter and Evans enjoying more screen time, Temple, with her limitations to the plot, became an overnight sensation playing little Shirley Dugan, daughter to song and dance man, Jimmy Dugan (James Dunn). The musical numbers in STAND UP AND CHEER do not play for the audiences in the movie (there are none), but mainly to its viewers. The song and dance appears during the course of the story, beginning with Dick (billed Nick) Foran coming out of a front page newspaper as Baxter and Evans read the headlines, and singing "I'm Laughing," later sung by a cross-country of citizens, and concluding with Aunt Jemima (Tess Gardella) and chorus. Next comes "Baby, Take a Bow" performed by Dunn, a chorine, and Temple; "Broadway's Gone Hillbilly" (sung by Sylvia Froos and chorus); "She's Way Up Thar" (sung by John "Skins" Miller); "This Is Our Last Night Together" (an audition number, sung by John Boles and Sylvia Froos); and the big parade march of happy Americans singing "We're Out of the Red" (introduced by Foran as the Paul Revere bearer of good news on a horse riding across the sky). As many classic movies in recent years have been nearly restored to its original length, such as the 1933 classic, KING KONG, for example, STAND UP AND CHEER seems to have never played in its entirety on television since the 1960s, and currently is the victim of further butchery. While the Stepin Fetchit segment, in which he encounters a penguin dressed, acting and talking like Jimmy Durante, has been restored, other scenes have been deleted, making the print in circulation since 1984 choppy and confusing. There's one scene in the story in which Baxter says "No" to Fetchit before hearing what he has to say. The violent gags of comedy team of Mitchell and Durant as U.S. senators are either trimmed or completely cut out. I was fortunate to have watched the complete version of STAND UP AND CHEER at a revival theater in New York City in the 1980s. Scenes missing from current prints are Aunt Jemima's introduction to "I'm Laughing," and Nick Foran's introduction to the finale, "We're Out of the Red." 'Skins' Miller, billed as the hillbilly, seen looking for a gal named Sally, bursting into song, "She's Way Up Thar," while Fetchit is out in the mountains with a butterfly net hired to get a hillbilly by Dinwiddie (Nigel Bruce), is completely gone. The closing cast credits is shown on screen in freeze frame and ends abruptly. Originally presented in theaters at 80 minutes, it can now be seen on video cassette (sometimes colorized) and on TV at the 69 minute length. A pity, because those seeing this for the first time today will think this is how it was presented to 1934 audiences, and it wasn't. STAND UP AND CHEER, which formerly played on American Movie Classics from 1996 to 2001, can be seen once in a while on the Fox Movie Channel. While no great masterpiece, this is one movie that deserves restoration to its original 80 minute length to be fully appreciated. (**1/2)