Little Big Shot

Is this another Damon Runyon story, like "Little Miss Marker"? It all sounds too familiar. As far as giving way for the black kids in the film, look up Sybil Jason's biography and you might a bit of British Jewishness in there (her uncle Harry Jacobson was a British band leader), which didn't sit well with Hollywood in those days.

Maybe that's why she didn't get too far. I was born in Hollywood, BTW, and I know a lot of Hollywood stuff and stories. My schools were full of child actors, my mother went to junior high in Hollywood with Judy Garland, before going to the MGM Schoolhouse. And Ricardo Montalban was a classmate of my mother.

Glenda Farrell is gorgeous and glamorous, as always. And Edward Everett Horton as a soda jerk is hysterical.

Adorable Sybil Jason tugs on the heartstrings of everyone save the most hard-boiled gangsters in this obvious attempt by Warners to come up with their own Shirley Temple. It almost works! Sybil plays an abandoned little girl whose innocence wins over a small-time con man (Armstrong) and his partner-in-petty crime (Edward Everett Horton). Indeed, Horton's presence here lends some humanity to the big lug that Armstrong plays--anyone with well-meaning bumbler Horton as his best pal can't be all bad. The gang warfare that underlies the plot makes for an uneasy ride for the little girl and the audience, however. Sybil is both charming and heart-rending as "The Countess", and the highlight is her rendition of the title song on the street to make some money for her new-found adopted father figures. But when the plot explodes in a burst of gunfire in a deadly police raid at movie's end it is clear why this movie failed at building a Shirley Temple-like franchise for Warners: falling back on their tried-and-true gangster formula, they mixed a bit too much death and danger into this story to make it a winner with family audiences. It's a shame, too, because Sybil Jason was definitely star material and could have given Temple a run for her money. (Jason later got to serve at the feet of the prototype herself (literally!) when she winningly played a Cockney chargirl to "The Little Princess" in 1939.)

Five-year-old Sybil Jason, or "The Countess', with her wonderful clear English diction, is orphaned, and teams up with two cheap four-flushers, the con men Steve (Robert Armstrong) and Mortimer (Edward Everett Horton) on Broadway in depression New York.

What a masterful performance Sybil gave! A true work of acting genius. We first see her in the "Ritz" with her father, Steve and Mortimer eating a palatial dinner neither her gambling indebted father, nor the broke four flushers can afford. Abandoned by her father, Sybil ends up at the con men's cheap hotel. Later, lost on the street in Broadway with three black children, she performs masterful song, dance and imitation routines that can only be compared to the VERY BEST of Shirley Temple and Mitzi Green. In one of the most heartbreaking scenes in cinema history, Steve abandons her at an orphanage where, sobbing, she carries a suitcase nearly as big as herself down the walkway and collapses on the stairs to the front door. Beyond that, you'll have to see the rest of the movie.

Sybil runs the gamut of emotions in her acting, always with her special girlish English accent. Her voice rings like a perfectly tuned bell. With her big brown eyes, she alternates masterfully between a little girl's joy, pain, laughter, longing, affection and fear.

The movie itself is extremely well done. Not your usual depression era child mush-fest, the movie works on many levels -- beyond the little lost orphan story, it is a masterful, tough gangster film, a love story, and a glittering, multi-faceted cinematographic gem of depression era Broadway street scenes.

Favorite line --

The Countess: "I'll be good. I won't say a word. I'll just sit in the corner and eat a lollipop"

Let's hope that the classic movie cable channels dig up some more of Sybil's lost films.

This movie is one of the best and the cast could not have been better. Jason's acting and singing are superior and Armstrong, Horton and Farrell are amazing. Too bad Jack LaRue was often overlooked as a fine performer. This movie needs more exposure and hopefully Amazon will have it available soon for instant video. If you have not watched this movie, do it soon. Check listings at TCM and if you have a DVR, record it. I have watched it over and over and only wish I had a hardcopy. The thugs are creepy but Sybil's darling acting is stellar and her sweet accent just add more to the " I'm a Little Big Shot" is precious and priceless.

Too violent for young children. Also, not recommended for dog lovers because of animal cruelty that does not advance plot. // Glenda and EEH are great as usual, but can't rise above mediocre story.