User reviews

While claiming that this film borders on kiddie porn may be something of a stretch, it's not much of a stretch. It is certainly odd to consider the parents agreeing to let their kids perform in such a movie, which is racy, to say the least. The spectacle of Shirley Temple swinging her four-year-old hips around for a crowd of hooting four-year-old boys is disturbing indeed. This is one of Shirley Temple's earliest works for which the modern audience, or at least the few people who still manage or bother to see it, are most unimpressed, if not outright offended.

The movie is a stark illustration of some of the difference between 1930s society and today's, as this film would not have the slightest chance of getting made in the 21st Century, and I like to see that I'm not the only person who's glad for that. Nonetheless, it seems that her appearance in this film, as well as the three that she appeared in previous to it, played a significant part in the explosion of her career as a child actor. Here's this girl who started acting at age four, stopped before her 20th birthday, and there she is appearing in all manner of glamorousness at the 1998 Academy Awards, four decades after her last performance as an actress.

The extent of her popularity and success is clearly apparent, but this movie is more of a look at how differently movies were made in the 1930s as opposed to today, rather than an enlightening look at what it was about Shirley Temple that made her so tremendously popular. It seems clear that War Babies was an unintelligent film that exploited what must have been Temple's staggering cuteness. I can certainly understand that, because I have a sister who is 5 years old and she absolutely floors me, but the thought of her dancing around like Shirley does in this movie is not cute in the slightest. What is probably most odd about this movie is that all of the parents of the kids that appeared in it probably absolutely loved it.

I imagine that not many of these parents are around anymore, so sadly it becomes all the more apparent as to why the film has such a small audience, and its obscurity I don't think can be chalked up entirely to the fact that it is more than 70 years old. Normally I am bothered by the fact that there are so many people in today's audience that refuse to watch older movies, simply because they are black and white. Imagine someone refusing to watch Schindler's List because it wasn't in color. Unbelievable. In this case, however, I don't find it upsetting in the least that this movie has become so rarely seen, because a movie that features a scene as disturbing as the finale of this one (in which a little boy holds up an over-sized bobby-pin, making a genuinely disturbing implication to another little boy) is not exactly a classic not to be overlooked.

Quite the contrary. Overlook at will.

I don't know why this conduct was ever tolerated in the movie business! This movie (short) is gross (to say the least)! It is a bunch of 5-7 year old children wearing diapers with big bobby pins, acting like adults (and too much so!). However, it is interesting because it is a good example of how "the good old days" may not have been so good after all! (Thank GOD we have laws against this kind of material now!)

{This is one short from the "Shirley Temple Festival"}

[I saw this movie once late on a public tv station, so I don't know if it's on video or not.]

This is one of the "Baby Burlesks" (sic) that Shirley Temple did in the early 1930s. It is hard to believe that anyone would let their daughter be in this racy little film which today might just be considered this side of "kiddie porn".

Shirley Temple stars in a cast which probably has an average age of 5. They are all in diapers, and are in a saloon which serves milk instead of alcohol. The "cash" is in the form of lollipops.

Shirley playing a "femme fatale" sashays up to the bar and talks to soldiers who make suggestive comments about her (!). But Shirley doesn't need really their lollipops/cash because her purse is full of ones from other "men".

Meanwhile a little black boy does a suggestive dance on a nearby table (!).

What a strange film . . . infants using racy dialogue playing adult roles in a saloon. Who thought up this stuff any way?

This is a peculiar and rather uncomfortable feature from the early days of Shirley Temple's career. It's rather strange to see such a complete contrast between the innocent, almost syrupy tone of her best-known full-length movies and the risqué, often rather inappropriate nature of many of her early short features. If nothing else, it provides some interesting examples of how the perspectives of the time differed from those of today.

Temple, at four years of age, is part of a cast consisting entirely of equally young children (as was also the case in many of her earliest short movies). She plays a dancer who entertains a group of soldiers in a café, soon becoming the source of a rivalry between two of them. Besides the basic story line, there are a lot of isolated gag ideas, many of them using milk in one way or another.

The children are depicted as thoroughly amoral characters, leading to a lot of situations that the vast majority of today's viewers would find uncomfortable or even disturbing. Certainly, no film-maker today could film such material using children without suffering irrevocable consequences to his or her career. Setting aside whatever one's personal feelings may be, it points out some very different attitudes or sensitivities - and of course, there are things that are routinely accepted in today's movies that would have provoked nearly universal outrage in the 1940s.

If you can set aside the uncomfortable nature of the material, there are probably a handful of amusing moments. The intent was obviously to use the children to satirize adult behavior, and on occasion it works. But, to be painfully honest, it's just not really a very good movie anyway. Besides the racy behavior of the child actors, they threw in some racial stereotypes, apparently just for good measure, and then the constant emphasis on milk is a bit odd in itself.

One thing, though, that does stand out is that Temple has an obvious energy and screen presence that transcends both her character and the nature of the material. It's no surprise that she could be spotted and groomed for stardom even while performing in things like this. What's a little less expected is to see such a complete contrast between the movies for which she is usually remembered and the movies that gave her a start.

This is a horrible little film--and unfortunately, the company that made this short made several others. The short is essentially a one-joke idea that wasn't funny to begin with and may also offend you. It certainly made me uncomfortable watching very young children (most appeared about 2 years-old) cavorting about and pretending to be adults--in this case, a dancehall girl and bar room patrons. It's the sort of humor that you might be forced to laugh at from your own kids if they pretended to be adults, but I can't see anyone WANTING to see this--especially when a very young Shirley Temple is dressed in a rather slinky outfit and acts like a vamp!! Seeing her in prolonged kisses with her co-stars just felt wrong and exploitative. At the time, I am sure they were not trying to appeal to pedophiles, but when looking at it today, that is what immediately comes to mind! Because of this, this boring film ALSO creeped me out and I hope to never see it again!! Pretty strange and pretty awful.

Although Shirley Temple's obvious charisma is hard to miss in this film, War Babies borders a bit on the suggestive. The people who would put their kids in this film remind me of the parents of Jon Benet Ramsey.

In a kiddie satire on What Prie Glory, Shirley Temple plays Charmaine the French girl fought over by Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt as a pair of boy toddlers take over those roles. It's cute, but it kind of borders on the creepy.

Definitely one for her still active legion of fans, but not one to my taste at all.

A SHIRLEY TEMPLE Short Subject.

It can get mighty rough at Buttermilk Pete's Cafe when the local contingency of diaper-clad WAR BABIES come in for their midday milk break.

This primitive little film - a spoof of military movies - provides a few chuckles, but little else: tiny tots talking tough can begin to pall in a short time. Shirley Temple, playing a duplicitous hip-swinging French miss, hasn't much to do in this pre-celebrity performance. Highlight: the real signs of toddler temper when a few of the infants unexpectedly get well & truly soaked with milk.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

I love these "Diaper Baby" movies! You couldn't make a movie like this today and it is rich in cinematic history. It is goofy and the film was made to make you laugh, which it does. How they ever got these kids to "act" I'll never know. I think they are precious and the kids make me laugh but so do the others who made this movie as it shows the naiveté that existed in the early 30's. You have to remember that this is when the film industry was very young, the stock market had crashed, the world wide depression was beginning and these films were made to give a person a break from the real world. The fact that you could see movies for five cents is beyond my comprehension, but then dinner for 25 cents is too. It was a different time with a totally different mind set.

Yesterday, I commented on the first of this type of short: "Runt Page," which incidentally was Shirley Temple's first part. This is effectively the last baby one: they didn't seem to work that well with audiences and this one was hit by a child porn suit.

"Runt Page" was a takeoff of "Front Page," featuring 4 year olds in diapers as all the characters, except with adult voices.

In this case, we have no specific movie spoofed, the child voices are used and the girls aren't topless. Also there's the token "negro" kid (called "boy") who grins and dances.

The story is simple: Charmaine (Shirley) is a French tart in a bar at the front. A good half of the movie is her dancing suggestively, including a butt shimmy when ice cream is dripped down her back. A typical tart, she shifts her attention to the bloke with the most gifts, here lollipops.

Two soldiers vie for her attentions, shown by on screen kissing. The shocker comes at the end: all the soldiers are called away and the two have to say goodbye to their gal. They confront each other — after a scene where she is hugging one and secretly kissing the second.

Alert viewers will note that when she comes out to say goodbye, her diaper pin is missing.

The first says something to the effect that "she's my girl," and the second says "oh yeah?" and shows he has Charmaine's diaper pin. (All the pins in these are 8 inches or so big but hers is 12 inches and has a ribbon on it.) Obviously, he's "been in her pants."

Its pretty smarmy stuff that most of the audience would have thought merely cute at the time.

Now the question is: what are we watching now that we think is cutely funny that our grandchildren will consider repulsive?

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

A nice Shirely Temple short. Child actors screaming their lines seemed to be the norm for that day and time. Perhaps being "seen and not heard" needed to be made up for. Aside from that this is fun. Given the films era there are certain aspects of the thing, from a social viewpoint, that strike me as both very progressive and liberal. I won't go into those here, I'd rather not spoil it for you but let you watch it for yourself and see if you spot those elements. As early on as it was its easy to see from this short the fascination that was already developing for Temple. That makes it worth watching if you're a Temple fan. For others its a cool way to kill ten minutes while you're waiting for your good night glass of milk to warm up on the stove.

While browsing the internet for previous sale prices, I ran across these comments. Why are they all so serious? It's just a movie and it's not pornographic. I acquired this short film from my parents 30 years ago and have always been totally delighted with it. I've shown it to many of my friends & they all loved it too. I feel privileged to own this original 1932 8mm black and white silent film of Shirley before she became popular or well known. After reading the other comments, I agree that the film is "racy". Big deal! I only wish it was longer. It seems that I must be the only person who owns one of these originals, for sale at least, so I wonder how much it's worth?

I tried to see it with open hard. And it was imposible. Because the children rights, the embarassing situations, a parody with touch of grotesque and strange situations.

Few little children in a cafe. References to army, rivalry in love for a presumed French dancer, a dog stealing underware, a kid and an imitation of cow, two blach children in stereotypical situations and some flirt, sweet candy, a lot of milk and some embarassment for viewer.

Sure, reflection of studio interests and a so young Shirley Temple as only feminine presence. But, after 90 years , difficult to be more than intrigued by this short film.

I think a film like this represents the casual humour accepted in the era.

It's short so one can't elaborate much on it, nor is there much to spoil.

I just find it quite fascinating Shirley's origins and the large variety of work she has done.

Clearly it has spanned from the serious to the musical to the parody.

I found the sounds felt very chipper, and I would be against viewing it in a colorized form in preference to black and white. Much like the three stooges this helps to preserve the character.

This seems like the most notable out of the 8 BB films ST's fame was launched with.

I remember my grandmother giving me this tape when I was a child, because she was going to throw it away. It contained Dora's Dunking Donuts and War Babies. Thinking back, I had to take the tape with me, whenever I spent the night at a friend's or a relative's. My favorite scene in War Babies was with the dog. Shirley Temple's character marches up to the dog, who in turn, barks at her. She runs back to the little boy and says, "I'm afraid!" And when another little boy goes to chase the dog away, the dog ends up chasing him out, but returns with the child's diaper. This tape has been passed back and forth between me and my sister over the years. I recently came across it in a storage box in my closet and gave it to my sister to keep.

While I agree w everyone else in that this film is disturbing, it's also a sign of the times and just goes to show that we have evolved as a society and can display and express our disgust by the film. Most of Shirley's movies that were made when she was a child had uncomfortable moments, this one is by far the most uncomfortable. I stil give it a 10-star rating as the movie for its time was entertainment. Filming and movies were still in their infancy and while it was not something we would at all condone today,, it's great to know that we have evolved and know better as humans to exploit children in this manner. I enjoyed the movie and enjoy even more knowing that it would never be ok today.

Okay, Shirley Temple plays a singer in this film short during wartime. Her skirt is ultra short and inappropriate now and wonder why the censors didn't notice it then. Also, the boys are supposed to be soldiers but they don't wear shirts. I know they're supposed to act like adults as children but I felt uncomfortable seeing the children exposed in an unhealthy manner. The boys and girls acted like adults even though they were small children but still I can't believe that the censors allowed the children to be dressed in such a manner to expose them to the world audience. Maybe they didn't notice it then about the negative reaction, I know I would never allow my son to go shirtless at a young age or my daughter to wear a short skirt to the thigh. I was a little disturbed by it all and I'm glad that it's not aired on television anymore.

This is a sweet little short that even though we, as adults, understand what it is going on, they are kids and knowing that Shirley Temples parents were there every step of the way and Mrs. Temple was so proud of her only daughter and protected her from anything racy, she had the right to say as to what material could be used. Please keep in mind that this was during depression and these short films were meant to uplift the spirits of all Americans, which it did. It was never meant to be uncomfortable. When watching, keep in mind these were a product of the times and not looked at as indecent. They are actually really cute and fun when in the right state of mind and Shirley herself is so incredibly talented and cute to watch. It made me giggle and put a smile on my face knowing the innocence of the kids were having fun. You can see most of them laughing in the background. Please don't be quick to judge negatively when watching, try to go back in time and enjoy it for what it was initially intended for and not for what we know now. This is just my 2 cents, so understand I can see where others are coming from and not criticizing their opinions, just wanting to support the early days of film.

It is very interesting to observe US commentators agonising between their traditional loyalty to their screen icons and their new allegiance to political correctness.

The British novelist, Graham Greene, then a very acute but acerbic film critic for, pointed out in 1937 in a review of the film Wee Willie Winkie, that "infancy" for Shirley Temple was "a disguise" and that her appeal was really "more secret and more adult". Her admirers, whom Greene characterises as "middle aged men and clergymen" respond "to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality" and can get away with it "only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire".

His analysis was, and is, patently quite correct (if a little harsh) but at the time 20th Century Fox were able to successfully sue Greene and the magazine ("Night and Day") for libel and Greene was obliged to got into exile (in Mexico) to avoid the trial and escape the scandal.

But Greene was sarcastic on the subject rather than pious, like the "politically correct" brigade, and such piety seems to me just as out of place as naive admiration.

The fact is that in a sexually-repressed, puritanical United States, babies and children, who could be shown naked (or largely naked) and in rather compromising situations (with their bums in the air, waggling their naked legs in the air, being spanked) were a source of sexual pleasure from the very earliest days of cinema. Early catalogues go out of their way to emphasise the "nakedness" of babies film on the beach and to point up the sexual appeal of schoolgirls' pillow-fighting.

In a society which had great difficulty with adult sexuality, such pedophile and hebephile pleasure were virtually inevitable. Long before the films of Shirley Temple, Mary Pickford was quite cynically exploiting this same tendency amongst viewers in her many "little girl" films with occasionally very knowing commentary by Frances Marion. Daddy Longlegs, for instance, is one her best films of the period but is quite clearly a story about a middle-aged man "grooming" a young girl to be his future wife and actually derives a good deal of its power as a story from that ambiguity. In many ways it prefigures the theme of the Shirley Temple film Curly Top 1935 (with a surrogate adult "sister" in the role of the grown-up child which, unlike Pickford, Temple could not very well play herself)..

Pickford and Temple complement each other - the adult who mimics the child and the child who mimics the adult. In both cases, the pretext afford a sexual voyeurism that would have been less acceptable had the object of desire been quite simply an adult woman (even when, as was common US practice at the time, a foreign actress or a Mexican was employed for the role).

The notion of "cradle-snatching" was perfectly current at the time. In one Pickford film where she is for once playing a grown woman (albeit a rather childish adolescent), a policeman, who has observed her with her boyfriend, rings through to the station to say that he is on the tracks of a cradle-snatcher, a sort of double-take joke that nevertheless makes it quite clear that Pickford and Marion were fully conscious of this element in her image. Shirley Temple actually plays a character called "Madame Cradlebait" in another of the Baby Burlesks. So contemporary attitudes were rather less innocent than is often supposed.

The "Baby Burlesks" were parodies and the joke in all of them consists in the fact that the babies behave like adults. This particular one is really quite a good parody of the long-running stage-hit What Price Glory? which had been superbly filmed by Raoul Walsh in 1926. Personally I find this frank, open and good-humoured exploitation far more acceptable than the later hypocrisy that falsely proclaimed its complete innocence of any such motives and of which Greene would be a victim in 1937.

War Babies (1932)

** (out of 4)

Many people consider this 9 minute short to be one of the worst ever made but I'm certainly not going to go that far. The "idea" to this short is quite simple as the setting is a bar where many sailors are at watching a girl (Shirley Temple) dance. What offends most people is the fact that these young kids are made to do adult things and there's no question that it comes across rather creepy today but then again this was 1932 and stuff like this was done. I mean, there were several very suggestive shorts from Our Gang. The reason most people are going to watch this today is for the casting of Temple who has a couple dances she has to do and is of course the center of attention of two guys fighting over her. The more object-able stuff happens whenever certain kids have milk thrown on them in order to get them to "cry" and this is a lot worse than some of the other stuff going on.