"Poor Little Rich Girl" is an interesting Shirley Temple movie because it seems to have been, at least in part, the inspiration for the 90s film "Baby's Day Out"!When the film begins, Barbara (Shirley Temple) is a pampered little girl living in a mansion. But she's also lonely and begs her father to send her to school. Instead of having her live at home and go to school (what normal folks would do), he decides to send her off to a residential school. On the way, however, she's separated from her governess when the lady is run over!!! This part sure shocked us! And Barbara just wanders off and ends up in the poor section of town. There she recognizes characters from a story book she loved and sees everything as a big adventure...and she tells everyone she's the little orphan girl, Bonny, from the book.During the course of Barbara's adventures, she meets up with the Dolans (Alice Faye and Jack Haley). The Dolans just accept Barbara's story that she's an orphan and take her in...never contacting the police or children's services! Much of this might be because she's a great singer and they want to put her in their singing/dancing act. Oddly, Barbara doesn't seem to miss her father nor does he seem to notice that she never arrived at the school!!! What a weird story.During the course of the film, Shirley sings a lot of cute but forgettable songs (there's no "Good Ship Lollipop" song in this one!), dances with Haley and Faye and is gosh-darned adorable. Pretty much, all the stuff you'd normally expect in a Temple movie...but with a MUCH weirder and nonsensical plot than usual. In addition there's a weird guy who likes to look in the windows at Barbara and offers to take her out to buy her candy--and I think he's supposed to be a pedophile (my wife, incidentally, thought maybe he was just a fortune-hunter who wanted to kidnap her)!!! Because of this, I wouldn't rank it among he better Temple outings but like almost all her other films (with the exception of "The Blue Bird") she made as a child, it's fun and worth seeing--and the kid is just adorable. Among the best part of the movie, by the way, is the cute portion where Barbara wins the heart of a grouchy old guy who looks to be the inspiration for Jeff Dunham's character 'Walter'! Well worth seeing despite its flaws.By the way, at the very end, Faye, Haley and Temple dress up and do a song AND dance routine...and it's supposed to be on the radio!! Does this make any sense at all?!

Poor Little Rich Girl (1936) Shirley Temple certainly was on a role in her heyday!! I'm not sure this film can top her others, but I'm beginning to think many would tie in a race. Shirley sings delightfully and charms everyone she meets. Obviously this is quite a pattern, but if it ain't broke... Poor Little Rich Girl is especially fascinating because Gloria Stuart from Titanic is a young beautiful blonde who takes a special liking to Barbara (Shirley) and her father. I've never seen the very young Gloria, and she is quite the beauty she still was in Titanic.Also, I would be remiss if I didn't alert you to Shirley's outstanding tap dancing in the soldier scene. She looked more relaxed and was as good or better than the adults. I'm not a huge fan of tap, but I know enough to know that the last scene is one impressive number from one richly gifted performer.

A little better than standard fare from 20th Century Fox's financial savior -- Shirley Temple. The story gets off to a bit of a slow start as sheltered rich girl Shirley gets sent away to school so she can be with other children. But, her chaperon loses her purse to a crook, and while looking for it is struck by a car, thus separating Shirley from her chaperon (whose fate we never discover...you'll recognize her as Judge Hardy's sister from the Andy Hardy films). On her own, Shirley gets lost in the city and befriends an organ grinder and his monkey...but an evil kidnapper has his eye on Shirley. In the same apartment building where all this is happening are hoofers Alice Faye (who later the same year will hit it big in "In Old Chicago") and Jack Haley (who 3 years later will be the Tin Man in "The Wizard Of Oz"). Shirley, Haley, and Faye land a contract with the rival soap company (owned by Claude Gillingwater) to her father's company...which ultimately leads to father and daughter being reunited.Aside from Shirley's usual bubbliness, are great performances by a number of co-stars. How can anyone not enjoy the lovably grumpy antics of Claude Gillingwater? And, its the scenes between Gillingwater and Temple that are just about the most charming you'll see in any old film! Gloria Stewart (the old lady of "Titanic" fame) plays the love interest to Shirley's father.There are some nice songs here, too: "When I'm With You", the remarkably entertaining "You've Gotta Each Your Spinach, Baby" (with Temple, Faye, and Haley), and the tap-dancing finale "A Military Man" (again, Temple, Faye, and Haley) is one of the most memorable in any of the Temple films...one I remembered from when I was a child 50 years ago! Something to watch for: 21 minutes into the film, as "daddy" picks Shirley up, there's a little too much of Shirley's thigh showing...and Shirley has the presence to pull down her dress a bit more modestly. A goof, but left in during the age of innocence.

I was six years old when I saw Shirley in Poor Little Rich Girl. I had been watching Shirley Temple movies since I was four, and I absolutely adored her.I was very impressionable at this age. My parents used to take me to the movies every Saturday. If Shirley Temple was playing I didn't want to miss it.The day after I saw this movie, we were sitting down for Sunday dinner. My mother was about to serve up spinach. I never had liked it, and Mother had to cut my serving in half to get me to eat it. She had about given up on getting Jerry to eat spinach. She said, "Well, I guess I'll give Norman some spinach today, but I know Jerry doesn't like it, so I'm not going to give it to him anymore." I immediately replied. "But Mom,I want the spinach. Yesterday I saw Shirley Temple at the movies, and she said we've got to eat our spinach. If she says to eat it,I'm gonna eat it! From now on I want spinach."My mother and father turned and stared at each other with their mouths open, in a look of disbelief that I will never forget. A little girl had accomplished in one day what they had been unable to do for months. From that day on, I ate my spinach and even got to like it!