After Shirley Temple was released from Twentieth Century Fox, this was her attempt to transition to mature roles. At the time, Temple was in her preteen phase and had outgrown the type of characters she usually played. KATHLEEN was her first, and only film, at MGM. Temple was left out of the teenybopper movies that were being made with the likes of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. KATHLEEN is still a decent effort though the story is a bit uninspired. The lead character Kathleen (Temple) is a restless child who only wants to win the affection of her father (Herbert Marshall) who is marrying a woman who does not love him (Gail Patrick). After Kathleen drives away her governess, Dr. Martha Kent (Laraine Day) has been enlisted to get to the root of Kathleen's nasty behavior. I enjoy this film because Shirley still gave us a good performance and handled her dramatic scenes well. She would go on to work with David O. Selznick who gave her better material.
Review of Kathleen
