KATHLEEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 186, 15 January 1943, Page 17

KATHLEEN

(M.G.M.)

UR little man was ready and willing to stand up and clap when Shirley Temple, charming as ever, stepped into sight in

Kathleen after her two-years" absence from the screen. But he found it impossible to stay on his feet for the whole of the film or even to keep clapping: the most he could do was to sit up and take notice. It looks to me as if Shirley growingup is not going to be the box-office draw that Shirley the Curlytop, the Wee Willie Winkie, or the Bright Eyes was; not that she hasn’t still got her shining curlytop, her bright eyes, her dimple, and her very: winsome smile. She has all these attractions and. others, too-a happy laugh, a quite pleasing though small singing voice, a naturalness that is astonishing-but she is not an oomphgirl, or at any rate not yet. I hope myself she never will be, but that is hardly likely to be the official (the box-officiab): opinion. . In Kathleen, Laraine Day (the Desirable), Gail Patrick (the Undesirable), and Herbert Marshall (the Malleable) are the main points of a triangle, Shirley being fenced-in, misunderstood, unloved, and’ lonely-though rich. The theme of the little girl whose mother is long-dead and whose father-is Busy with Business and always Dines Out follows the usual groove. Dr. Larraine Day (psychology specialist) is brought in to deal with the case! because the child is said to be unmanageable by the unloving and unloved governess. Result: busy father suddenly begins to Dine at Home; poor little rich girl gradually becomes happy; and psychology doctor at length becomes a step-mother, when it becomes clear at last that the Other Woman was merely ambitious for money. There are some good scenes in which Shirley dreams herself into the position of a daughter loved and understood by her father-‘"My darling, how blind I have been"-or of a prima donna earning huge sums of money to buy off the undesirable woman.