War Babies
Baby Burlesks · 10 minThe first Baby Burlesk. Set in a saloon in wartime France, with toddlers parodying adult war-romance pictures. Shirley Temple's screen debut at age 3.
Source: archive.org/details/war_babies
A free archive of her public-domain pictures, presented in the order she made them.
The first Baby Burlesk. Set in a saloon in wartime France, with toddlers parodying adult war-romance pictures. Shirley Temple's screen debut at age 3.
Source: archive.org/details/war_babies
A toddler-cast spoof of frontier-wagon Westerns, complete with pint-sized cowboys, Indians and a runaway covered wagon.
Shirley plays La Belle Diaperina, a saloon singer rescued from a cad. A small-fry send-up of Mae West / Gay Nineties melodrama.
The toddlers play out a behind-the-scenes Hollywood story: a starlet's rise from the diaper-strewn casting couch to the big time.
Shirley as a political vamp sent to corrupt an honest senator. Pre-Code political satire performed entirely by preschoolers.
Source: archive.org/details/1933-polly-tix-in-washington-s07
A spoof of jungle-explorer pictures. Shirley is 'Madame Cradlebait,' a missionary kidnapped by cannibal cubs and rescued by Diaperzan.
Andy Clyde tries to save a small-town doughnut shop with a children's radio show. Shirley plays one of the singing kids; a step up from the Burlesks.
A two-reel comedy about a teenage brother and sister and their kid-sister (Shirley) navigating school, beaux and family quarrels.
Source: archive.org/details/MerrilyYours
Pre-Code Henry Hathaway Western from a Zane Grey novel. Randolph Scott and Esther Ralston headline; a very young Shirley Temple appears in a supporting role.
Source: archive.org/details/ZaneGreysToTheLastMan1933-RandolphScott
Sonny Rogers wants a car; Shirley wants the puppies. A Frolics of Youth two-reeler released just as Shirley broke out at Fox.
Walter Lang's Technicolor adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel — Shirley's first all-Technicolor feature, and one of her best-loved roles.
Shirley's most famous Fox features remain owned by 20th Century Studios / Disney. Under US copyright law each film enters the public domain on January 1st of the year following its 95th anniversary of publication. Here's the countdown.
Public domain status reflects US copyright (publication + 95 years). Restorations or remasters may carry separate copyrights. We host none of these files — the player embeds streams from archive.org.