User Reviews

"Kid in Hollywood" is an American 10-minute movie from 1933, so you probably guessed correctly that this is a silent black-and-white film, even if some people added color here to later versions. The writer and director is once again Charles Lamont, who is mostly known for his Abbott and Costello films nowadays, if at all. But the star here is lead actress Shirley Temple of course. She was only 4 years old here, but already had leading actress status. Nonetheless, regardless of her talent, I must say the story here about an aspiring actress is nothing too special really and not memorable either, not even convincing for 10 minutes. The idea of (very) young kids playing adults as an approach to comedy that may entertain very young audiences as well as grown-ups was popular back in the day, but this one we have here is not one of the best elaborating on this idea. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended. I think it's not the kids' fault though. They do what they can with the material.

Before Shirley Temple hit it big in feature films, she appeared in a number of these "Baby Berlesks", bizarre little parody shorts featuring small children in diapers. This piece was actually released as "Kid 'N' Hollywood", to be a sort of pun on "Kidding", since it does kid Hollywood. There were also such inspired titles as "The Pie-Covered Wagon", "What Price Gloria" (later renamed "War Babies" after the obvious reference to prostitution caused an outcry) and "The Runt Page". These remind me of the "Dogville Comedies", in that the participants were made to perform as obedient puppets without having much idea of what it was all about or why it might be funny. Sit! Stay! Speak!

Almost five when this was released, Shirley was already a seasoned pro, and later wrote of her experiences in the Berlesks, where parents weren't permitted on the set but were assured that their little darlings would be well cared for. After the mothers had surrendered the tots to the set's Child Welfare supervisor and retired to a waiting room, the airtight doors were closed and the Child Welfare supervisor herself retired to a comfy lounge, leaving the little performers to the tender mercies of director Charles Lamont. The children were then bullied to insure obedience and punished if they didn't perform satisfactorily, sometimes being shut up in a large black sound box with nothing to sit on but a block of ice, and threatened with further box time if they told any outsiders about their treatment. Shirley in fact confided in her mother about the box but the story was dismissed as too weird to credit. The icy box, after hot Kleig lights, "...also proved a slick way to induce ear infections, a sty, some boils, or intestinal flu, items of only slight concern to our film mentors, save where production was delayed."

There were trip wires used, among the many threats to tender little bodies-- never mind the emotional scars that doubtless remained with many cast members throughout life. Some quit films after their stint in the Berlesks, some went on to real acting careers. During the making of "Kid 'N' Africa", Shirley and another child were put into a cart hitched to an untrained ostrich, which immediately dashed away at full speed and after a wild tour of the set the inevitable crash ensued, fortunately without resulting in serious injury for anyone involved. Can you imagine anyone trying to get away with this stuff today? Shirley, an unusually bright child who really enjoyed performing and had a secure family situation, learned to be a tough survivor and walked away from the Berlesks unscathed.

That being said, this curious opus presents Shirley as small-town beauty pageant winner "Morelegs Sweettrick" trying to break into the movies, and getting her big chance when temperamental star "Freta Snobo" is "too tired" to report to the set. Shirley's mother whipped up a glittering vamp costume (with diaper) for the occasion, with an obvious nod to Marlene Dietrich's "Hot Voodoo" look from the recent Blonde Venus (she even enters to the strains of "Falling in Love Again"). It's not always easy to understand everything the children say or sing, but Shirley, flashing a thousand-watt smile, delivers her lines and musical numbers with assurance and charm, and the story plays out to its happy ending, which gives us the startling sight of little Shirley married to a little boy (both still in diapers), and looking proudly at their even littler baby!

I have studied the history of cinema and theatre for years. This movie took place in the Great Depression. My impression of this whole situation: the child-actors were exploited. Lots of the parents were poor and uneducated. Children were beaten and sexually molested a lot in those days, by their parents and other adults. These kids were slaves, to make money for their miserable parents who couldn't make a nickel if it was handed to them. We hear so much about how kid actors were abused, and then "retired" early and remained silent their entire lives. I watched a Shirley video of her on the aircraft in "Good Ship Lollipop". She was surrounded by adult men, and I wonder if at least one of them was looking at her with not-good intentions. There is something wrong here. Why is such a young child worked constantly, when she should have a real childhood? I wonder if these children had to be part of the casting-couch scene.

Is this why they "retire" early, because of the fear of being fired, blackmailed, etc., not to mention being no longer 'cute'? "Kid 'N' Hollywood": Shirley as the pint-sized feather-wearing trollop was a disaster for the stomach. What exploitation! She was the only female surrounded by about ten boys; the other female was the star Snobbo. I realize that this was satire about adult casting, but it was so blatant. Shades of JonBenet! Creepy doesn't begin to describe the impressions of this film. Yes, Shirley was super-talented. She basically left the business quite early, even marrying young at age 17. She looked 'old' in a picture of her at age 20.

I know that movie censorship czars were trying to get a grip on the industry in the early 1930s, but this movie apparently got through all the censors with its half-nude toddlers and suggestive, erotic get-up worn by Shirley. The scene where Shirley and the "father" (both wearing diapers) bathe the "baby" was totally ridiculous.

My memory drifts to the same-time-period of those dogs who were put into short movies, where they wore clothes and had to 'act' in human-adult satires. The dog-actors 'walked' on cue, held up by wires; they wore hats, coats, and of course no undergarments. They 'barked' their conversation and singing. You talk about exploitation! I remember where one dog shoots another as a result of a love triangle, with the loser paying the price for the indiscretion. This must have been a takeoff on all the gangster and murder movies of the 1930s. With so much joblessness and poverty in that era, crime of course escalated, giving much fodder to writers of novels and movies about gangsters and their molls. I never heard of dogs having an actors' union.

Maybe the censors and humane-association do-gooders were on the right track. I don't know how and when the dog-pictures got done away with, but the human-children-exploitation process never really went away. Even today, former child stars lament about their unhappy childhoods and how they were forced into their miniature show business careers, their parents squandered all their money, etc. I guess it never stops.