Young People
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Allan Dwan
Shirley Temple
Jack Oakie
Charlotte Greenwood
Arleen Whelan
George Montgomery
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
When their old friend, Barney O'Hara, dies, vaudevillians Kit and Joe Ballantine adopt his infant daughter Wendy. Wendy is barely able to walk when she joins the Ballantines' song-and-dance act, and although she is beloved by her audiences, Joe and Kit think that she deserves a normal life instead of one filled with hotel rooms and trains. Consequently, they purchase a farm in Stonefield, Vermont and leave the theater. The gregarious Ballantines arrive in Stonefield to find that they are unwelcome by the narrow-minded citizenry, who are led by Hester Appleby, the hidebound town matriarch and schoolteacher. They are are welcomed, however, by newspaper owner Mike Shea, the only person in town who believes in change. Mike's outspoken opinions create problems in his courtship of Judith, Hester's niece. During a town meeting, the civic-minded Joe supports Mike's idea to promote tourism, and to humiliate Joe, the citizenry appoints him a one-man chamber of commerce. While Mr. Dakin and others make fun of Joe behind his back, Wendy transforms Hester's prosaic school show into a dynamic vaudeville act. When the children stage the show, however, their parents object to the material and stop it in mid-performance. This last humiliation prompts the Ballantines to decide to pack up and return to show business. In a final act of cruelty, one of the children tells Wendy that she is adopted. A raging storm strikes on the day of their departure, and on their way to the train station, they find a group of lost children and take them to Hester's house for shelter. Discovering that little Jerry Dakin is still lost in the storm, Joe braves the weather to rescue the boy. Joe's bravery forces the townsfolk to revise their opinions of the newcomers, and they finally unite behind the Ballantines' progressive ideas.
Director
Allan Dwan
Cast
Shirley Temple
Jack Oakie
Charlotte Greenwood
Arleen Whelan
George Montgomery
Kathleen Howard
Minor Watson
Frank Swann
Frank Scully
Mae Marsh
Sarah Edwards
Irving Bacon
Charles Halton
Arthur Aylesworth
Olin Howland
Billy Wayne
Harry Tyler
Darryl Hickman
Shirley Mills
Diane Fisher
Bobby Anderson
Ted North
Almeda Fowler
Robert Shaw
Charles Tannen
Mary Gordon
Evelyn Beresford
Al Herman
Iva Stewart
Alice Armand
Jasper H. Mcnamara
Kitty Mchugh
Harry Seymour
Jimmie Lucas
Syd Saylor
A. S. Byron
Walter Soderling
Herbert Heywood
Nora Cecil
Lew Kelly
Dell Henderson
Ernie Alexander
Billy Benedict
Kathryn Sheldon
Ruth Warren
Fern Emmett
Paul Burns
Crew
Sammy Benson
Edwin Blum
Edwin Blum
Harry Joe Brown
Nicholas Castle
James B. Clark
Edward Cronjager
Richard Day
Mac Elliott
Don Ettlinger
Don Ettlinger
Mack Gordon
Roger Heman
George Leverett
Thomas Little
Hilary Lynn
Arthur Miller
Alfred Newman
Geneva Sawyer
Ad Schaumer
Fred Sersen
Rudolph Sternad
Gwen Wakeling
Harry Warren
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this picture was The Come Back, and it was Shirley Temple's last picture on her seven-year Twentieth-Century Fox contract. An early Hollywood Reporter production chart lists Arthur Miller as photographer. Studio publicity adds that Sidney Lanfield was originally to have directed, but was re-assigned to Elsa Maxwell's Public Deb No. 1. Materials contained in the Twentieth Century-Fox Produced Scripts Collection at the UCLA Theater Arts Library indicate that the original story idea was dictated by Darryl F. Zanuck, who wanted to show Temple growing up on screen in front of a live audience. According to studio press releases, the success of the film's preview led Fox producer Sol Wurtzel to team George Montgomery and Arleen Whelan in the 1940 film Charter Pilot. Studio publicity stories note that Kathleen Howard, who played the harsh old maid "Hester," talked Allan Dwan into rewriting the ending of the film so that "Wendy" wins over "Hester," thus making her less of a heavy. Studio publicity also notes that the hurricane sequence in the film was shot using equipment from Fox's production The Rains Came (see below).
