Bewitching Mysteries #1-3

Author: Madelyn Alt
Series: Bewitching Mystery, Books 1-3
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Genre: Cozy Mystery- Paranormal
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Double, double, toil and murder...

Bringing a little culture to Stony Mill, Indiana, Enchantments is one of the area’s finest antique stores. But shop clerk Maggie O’Neill and her employer Felicity Dow do more than conjure up curios for the locals—they each possess a talent for spellbinding sleuthing . . .

Bored with her office job, Maggie jumps at the opportunity to work at Enchantments. She was a little weirded out when Felicity described herself as a witch, but if her boss wants to play with broomsticks and cauldrons, where’s the harm? However, Maggie’s first day on the job may turn out to be her last when Police question Felicity in the murder of her estranged sister.

With everyone in town proclaiming Felicity’s guilt faster than the Salem Witch trials, Maggie finds herself wondering if she’ll also be tied to the stake. And lately, she’s been receiving messages on a spiritual frequency guiding her to prove Felicity’s innocence—and to embrace her own "charmed" life.

Title: The Trouble with Magic
Start & Finished: 4/13/08-4/14/08
Published: 2006
Pages: 261

In January 2006, Madelyn Alt made her writing debut with the first book in her Bewitching Mystery cozy series The Trouble With Magic. The books feature an average, small-town-girl heroine named Maggie who according to the author popped into her mind one day out of the blue insisting that her story be told.

Having always been intrigued by the paranormal (especially witches and ghosts!), I was very excited when I discovered the Bewitching Mystery cozies. Maggie is such a down to earth character and I just adored the antique shoppe called Enchantments that she starts working at because Mrs. Alt describes it in such vivid detail.

Since this is the debut book of the series, there is a ton of things going on but the actual mystery part of the story is never too far from the front and center. Clues are sprinkled throughout the book but the ending still a little surprised me. This whole series has a magical, mystical quality to them that reflects the actual magic in the books. You just can’t go wrong with witches, ghosts, antiques in a murder mystery!

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Maggie O'Neill was just your average small-town girl, stuck in a dead-end job until she started working at Enchantments, Stony Mill's finest antique shop with a unique mystical secret. Now Maggie is Indiana's newest witch. Learning to cope with her newfound powers is tough enough, but add to that keeping the stock at Enchantments organized, keeping the peace with her somewhat controlling mom, and remembering to tape reruns of her favorite show, Magnum, P.I., and Maggie's got a full plate.

But when a second questionable death occurs a scant two months into her store tenure, she can't turn her thoughts away from all the town gossip about the teenage princess and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the girl's charmed life and death. While the police get caught up in procedure and logic, Maggie uses every trick, charm, and intuition she can summon, with the assistance of her favorite witchy boss Felicity Dow, to get to the heart of this spellbinding murder.

A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. In this case? Get witchy!

Title: A Charmed Death
Start & Finished: 4/15/08-4/16/08
Published: 2006
Pages: 289

Madelyn Alt returns to Stony Mill, Indiana in the second story of her Bewitching Mystery series A Charmed Death. Her budding empath Margaret Mary-Catherine O'Neill; or Maggie as she would rather be known, has gotten herself tangled up in another murder in their small town. Although it’s a very new series by a new author, this book became Barnes and Noble’s second bestselling mystery for a little over two months as well as made it on their overall mass-market bestseller list for two weeks.

The N.I.G.H.T.S. (Northeast Indiana Ghost Hunting & Tracking Society) are a little more prominent in the book and there is a great ghost hunt too, during which you get to know the other hunters a little better. After Felicity (the owner of Enchantments and Maggie’s boss), Genevieve the ex- nun and Annie (the owner of a restaurant that makes incredibly delicious food) are still some of my favorite minor characters but I also just love Marcus’ personality. I hope to see even more of him in future books!

My only complaint about A Charmed Death is that I didn’t really care for all the focus on the high school teenagers, even if the murder victim was one. The teenage angst got to be a little much at times, especially Marcus’ niece Tara with her constant attitude and disrespect. In direct contrast to her, Evie (the youngest member of the N.I.G.H.T.S.) also plays another important role in the book and is even working at the shoppe now too. While I understand why it was necessary for them to have so much “screen time” I much preferred when Maggie was center stage (I do wish Felicity had put in more appearances though).

A believer of paranormal herself, Madelyn Alt is in a way a lot like Maggie, who throughout the first novel and part of this one denies her gifts as an empath and writes off her experiences as coincidence. In Alt’s case, she experienced paranormal events like this too but continued to dismiss them due in part to how she was raised (also like Maggie). The author has admitted that some of herself went into her heroine’s character but she insists that Maggie came to her fully developed and they are more like sisters.

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While her boss becomes entranced with a beautiful armoire at the countywide craft bazaar, Maggie can't help noticing the Amish craftsman who made it. Though his clothes may be plain, he himself is more handsome than a man sporting a jawline-only beard has any right to be. And he seems pretty aware that the ladies love his...furniture. But when the hunky craftsman turns up dead with a strange hex symbol near his corpse, Maggie wonders if the craft involved is the witchy kind.

Title: Hex Marks the Spot
Start & Finished: 4/16/08-4/17/08
Published: 2007
Pages: 246

The third and current story by Madelyn Alt that features Maggie O’Neil is Hex Marks the Spot. Set in a small Indiana community of varied cultures and religions, Maggie becomes involved in another murder investigation when a hex symbol is found near a dead Amish man. As with the first two books in these cozy Bewitching Mystery series, Barnes and Noble took a special interest in this book as well and it remained high on their bestselling mystery list for quite a while.

In a recent interview Mrs. Alt claimed that her cross-genre series that covers a little bit of romance, some paranormal, and a whole lot of mystery is influenced by such great authors as Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, Kim Harrison, and Janet Evanovich. I believe that her books do include slight elements from these authors but the Bewitching Mysteries and their main character Maggie have a voice all of their own.

I’m ashamed to admit; but even though I’m familiar with many of the paranormal elements to these mysteries, I had never even heard of Amish hex symbols before so everything in this book was new to me. In fact, I know only a few things about the Amish people themselves but I found all of what was in the book incredibly fascinating.

While these mysteries do have sad and even heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat moments to them, I just love how down to earth the characters in the book are even when they are doing extraordinary things. This series have become almost comfort reading to me! I can’t wait to read the next book No Rest for the Wiccan that comes out this November!

Blogs: Myspace, All Things Madly, Witchy Chicks, Amazon.com
Interviews: Quiet on the Set (audio), Prime Crime, Barnes and Noble (under Features)

Who, How, & Why?

While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter's night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift. Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment. Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside. With no escape into the wintery landscape, the killer must still be on board! Fortunately, the brilliant Belgian inspector Hercule Poirot is also on board, having booked the last available berth. He launches an immediate and urgent investigation into this vexing crime- for which each of the thirteen other passengers seems to have a motive.

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie
Series: Hercule Poirot, Book 8
Start & Finished: 4/9/08-4/12/08
Published: 1933
Publisher: Dodd, Mead and Company
Pages: 249
Genre: Mystery, Crime

Murder in the Calais Coach, more commonly known as Murder on the Orient Express, was Dame Agatha Christie’s ninth mystery featuring her detective Hercule Poirot. Inspired partly by the notorious Lindbergh baby kidnapping/ murder and a snowbound Orient Express train this remains one of her most popular mysteries today with two movies (one made for TV) and even a video game.

This was the second book chosen as the group read for the online reading group I own (Books Into Movies) and it was my first Agatha Christie mystery so I wasn’t sure what to expect. At first, I had to make myself read it and was even tempted to put it down at one point but ironically; even though it started off so slow, once it picked up speed it was like a runaway train with a jaw-dropping ending.

I usually hate it when an author throws a ton of suspects at you in a murder mystery but all thirteen of the suspects were interesting and Christie managed to make every one of them have separate personalities. Besides, I wasn’t really sure if I could hold what happened on that train against the person that killed Ratchett. I think Christie said that the “victim” was all but acquitted in court for kidnapping and murder of a child before he skipped town. I never actually stopped to consider his innocence until someone in my group asked what gave the killer the right to dispense his justice? While it’s an interesting question, I didn’t actually care if the killer was caught or not. I just wanted to know how he or she did it and why of course!

It was interesting to see Hercule Poirot unravel the mystery although he himself was an annoying little man. It took me a while to warm up to him but I never really liked his personality. I wasn’t very surprised to learn that by the time Murder on the Orient Express was published, “Christie found Poirot 'insufferable' but because the public loved him, she refused to kill him off, claiming that it was her duty to produce what the public liked, and what the public liked was Poirot” (via Wikipedia- Poirot) and because of that he is the main character in almost 40 different mysteries, more than any of Ms. Christie’s other repeating characters.

Spoiler (highlight if you’ve read the book):
Throughout the story, I considered four different passengers as capable of Ratchett’s (aka Cassetti) brutal murder. At one point, I considered Ms. Hubbard especially since she went on and one about her daughter, I thought maybe her daughter could have been the maid that killed herself but I had all but ruled her out by the conclusion. And while I wasn’t suspicious (I had never read a mystery quite like this one before) I did puzzle over the fact that so many people of varied cultures on the same train in the middle of nowhere are somehow or another connected to the kidnapping and murder case of little Daisy Armstrong. I just assumed that the author went with the “it’s a small world” mentality. Boy was I in for a shock!

Wikipedia: Murder on the Orient Express (book) & Agatha Christie
Sparknotes: Murder on the Orient Express


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The Who's Who In The Whodunit!

Elegant, escapist entertainment at its stylishly European best. This Agatha Christie whodunit boasts an incredible international cast of some of the most wonderfully eccentric characters ever created.

Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her role as the slightly dim-witted, Bible-quoting Swedish missionary. Albert Finney is the dapper detective, Hercule Poirot, for whom murder-solving is a precise, intellectual exercise. Poirot agrees to interview all aboard the famous train's Calais coach, hoping to find the killer of an American millionaire before the local police arrive. Packed with sparkling dialogue and visually rich in texture, this incomparable thriller received six Academy Award nominations.

Title: Murder on the Orient Express
Release: November 24, 1974
Genre: Mystery
MPAA Rating: PG
Writer: Agatha Christie (novel), Paul Dehn, Anthony Shaffer
Director: Sidney Lumet
Music By: Richard Rodney Bennett
Produced By: John Brabourne & Richard B. Goodwin
Distributed By: Paramount Pictures
Run Time: 128 minutes

Reportedly the only adaptation based on her books that Agatha Christie personally approved of was the 1974 film Murder on the Orient Express. Starring an incredible amount of Hollywood’s top stars like Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, and many more.

After being wowed by Ms. Christie’s book I had to see what is known as the best adaptation of any of her work and I was hoping that it would be even half as good as the book. I needn’t have worried! Sure, the varied accents were hard to decipher and I liked Hercule Poirot a whole lot less because he reminded me of a vain, pompous frog but there aren’t any slow parts this star stuffed cast of characters! They managed to convey the story so well even if it’s not as subtle as in the book.

I could go on all day about how amazing this cast was, especially Lauren Bacall! Ingrid Bergman may have won the Academy Award that year for Best Supporting Actress (there were five other nominations too: Best Actor, Cinematography, Costume Design, Music, and Writing) for her part as Greta Ohlsson but I thought Mrs. Hubbard was so much better. I hardly even noticed Greta in the book and in the movie.

Not only was Murder on the Orient Express my first Agatha Christie novel but this film is also the first adaptation I have seen of her work. Now I’m only worried that no other adaptation will be able to measure up! We’ll see soon since I’ll be watching the 1965 movie Ten Little Indians before too much longer (also known as And Then There Were None).

Imdb.com, Wikipedia, TCM.com

visit videodetective.com for more info

Captures the Magic of Youth

Robert R. McCammon captivated millions of readers with his storytelling power in such bestsellers as Mine, Swan Song, and Stinger. Now he has created is tour de force: Boy's Life, a masterpiece of magic and mystery, of the splendors of growing up in a small town, and of the wonders beyond. Narrated by one of the most engaging young voices in modern fiction, Boy's Life takes us back to our own childhoods, when bicycles were enchanted steeds and anything was possible...

Zephyr, Alabama, has been an idyllic home for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson... a place where monsters swim in the belly of the river, and friends are forever. Then, on a cold spring morning in 1964, as Cory accompanies is father on his milk route, they see a car plunge into a lake some say is bottomless. A desperate rescue attempt brings Cory's father face-to-face with a vision that will haunt him: a murdered man, naked and beaten, handcuffed to the steering wheel, a copper wire knotted around his neck. As Cory struggles to understand the forces of good and evil at work in his hometown, from an ancient woman called the Lady who conjures snakes and hears the voices of the dead, to a violent clan of moonshiners, he realizes that not only his life but his father's sanity may hang in the balance...

Title: Boy’s Life
Author: Robert R. McCammon
Start & Finished: 4/5/08 - 4/6/08
Published: 1991
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pages: 608
Genre: Fiction-Fantasy, Mystery, Horror

Winner of the Bram Stoker and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, retired author Robert R. McCammon’s “fictography” (a combination of fiction and biography) story Boy’s Life is one of his most acclaimed works. It is also one of his more controversial ones too since there was an attempted ban of it in 2006 but it failed once the author flew in to defend it himself.

When I had just started reading horror, I discovered a few of McCammon’s books and although I enjoyed them, I have a hard time remembering much about them today. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve matured or if this story in particular is just that good but I absolutely adored this book! I’m so glad that it was chosen as the book of the month in one of my online reading groups.

After finishing Boy’s Life, I was left with a feeling I don’t get very often: I just wanted to sit and savor this beautifully haunting (in all definitions of the word) story that McCammon had created. It had a wonderfully poetic Stephen King meets Ray Bradbury feel to it but there is uniqueness to the story as well. I think that if Mr. King had made his short story The Body (better known as the movie Stand by Me) into a full-length novel, he would have created something similar to this.

If I have one bad thing to say about this book it would be that I was able to figure out the mystery part, including the who and a little of the why a little too quickly but there were many other parts to the story so it didn’t matter as much. I especially loved the characters like The Lady, and the many varied adventures that Cory goes through during the course of the novel. From zombie dogs and river monsters to ghosts, bullies, floods, and many other things. Growing up in Zephyr, Alabama was quite an experience.

These are a couple of my favorite passages from Boy’s Life:

~ “I'd like to be everybody in the world," I said. "I'd like to live a million times." p. 11

~ There is something about nature out of control that touches a primal terror. We are used to believing that we’re the masters of our domain, and that God has given us this earth to rule over. We need this illusion like a good night-light. The truth is more fearsome: we are as frail as young trees in tornadoes, and our beloved homes are one flood away from driftwood. We plant roots in trembling earth, we live where mountains rose and fell and prehistoric seas burned away in mist. We and the towns we have built are not permanent; the earth itself is a passing train. When you stand in muddy water that is rising toward your waist and you hear people shouting against the darkness and see figures struggling to hold back the currents that will not be denied, you realize the truth of it: we will not win but we cannot give up. p.72

~ My bike, old in the ways of a boy’s life long before it had reached my hands by merit of a flea market, was no longer a living thing. I felt it, as I sat there in the pouring rain. Whatever it is that gives a soul to an object made by the tools of man, it had cracked open and flown to the watery heavens. p. 57

~ Because Death cannot be known. It cannot be befriended. If Death were a boy, he would be a lonely figure, standing at the playground's edge while the air rippled with other children's laughter. If Death were a boy, he would walk alone. He would speak in a whisper and his eyes would be haunted by knowledge no human can bear. p.344

Links:
Author Website: Archived Interviews and a page about Boy’s Life
Wikipedia: Robert R. McCammon & Boy's Life

The Power of Imagination

Alyss of Wonderland's rules has only just begun and already those who prefer chaos to peace are threatening to destroy everything worth imagining. Trailed by newly appointed Royal Bodyguard Homburg Molly, Alyss is doing her best to keep pace with the non-stop demands of being Queen while attempting to evade Molly for a few private moments with Dodge. Alyss's life is already a challenging mix of duty, love and imagining when a series of phantom sightings set fire to an urban myth of her imperial viciousness's return and have everyone. . . Seeing Redd.

Title: Seeing Redd
Author: Frank Beddor
Series: The Looking Glass Wars, Book 2
Start & Finished: 4/3/08
Published: 2007
Publisher: Dial
Pages: 384
Genre: Fiction-Fantasy

Skier, stuntman, actor, producer, and now author, Frank Beddor is certainly a man of many talents. After producing There’s Something About Mary, Mr. Beddor decided that he wanted to
create and then spent five years doing just that with The Looking Glass Wars. Rejected several times, his “true story” about Wonderland was finally published and a year later, the sequel Seeing Redd followed. Despite the many outraged Lewis Carroll fans, this trilogy (the last installment is to be released in 2009) has accumulated it’s own fan following inspiring a graphic novel featuring Hatter Madigan, an album of original music, and the author is rumored to be working on a screenplay for a movie adaptation as well.

I love it when an author includes people and things from the classics but I’ve found that I equally enjoy “re-tellings” of familiar and timeless stories as well. Not only are they recreating something new but they’re also generating interest in the old material as well for a new generation of people. Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West) was mainly my go-to guy when it came to the “true story” re-tellings but I’ve enjoyed Beddor’s books even more.

The characters in the book have gone through some emotional developments in Seeing Redd. Alyss is still working on her Imagination because she went all those years in England not being able to use it, we learn why
Hatter Madigan had to request a vacation, and Molly’s childishness gets everyone in a really big mess too. Plus back in England, Charles Dodgeson (also known as Lewis Carroll) gets to meet his “Queen of Hearts” face to face while she’s building her army.

Despite the fact that this is the middle book of a trilogy it has a great ending but I’m still anxiously awaiting the release of the third book ArchEnemy (originally titled The Law of Wonderland). Alyss is doing a good job as queen but with so many obstacles in her path and so many people trying their hardest to take over, I think the ending could be anyone’s game.

LGW Trilogy:
1. The Looking Glass Wars (2004)
2. Seeing Redd (2007)
3. ArchEnemy (2009)

Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars graphic novels
Far From Wonder : Volume 1 (2010) (with Liz Cavalier and Ben Templesmith)
1. Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars Volume 1 (2008) (with Liz Cavalier)
2. Mad With Wonder (2009) (with Liz Cavalier)
3. The Nature of Wonder (2010) (with Liz Cavalier)

First Paragraph: Wonderland's finest architects had designed it and overseen its fabrication. The most skilled glaziers, carpenters, masons, and gemologists had worked tirelessly to ensure that even its smallest details were built according to plan: Heart Palace, imagined anew on the site of the former palace, which had stood for generations until being cruelly decimated by Redd.

Links:
Wikipedia- The Looking Glass Wars
Wikipedia- Seeing Redd
BookBrowse- Interview with Frank Beddor

Trailer:


Q&A:


Source: Personal collection, hardcover

Related Reviews

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Alice in Wonderland (1933)

Visitors from Oz by Martin Gardner

Picture Explanations
Original artwork commissioned for book

Shirley Temple's Baby Burlesk Shorts

The Baby Burlesk series were satires of major motion pictures and the then current events. All of the performers were preschool-aged children. They were costumed as adults--excepting their giant diapers with pins--and given mature dialogue. Filmed in 1931-32, before the Hayes Code was actively enforced, the series is considered dated and exploitative by many modern viewers and film critics because of its depictions of young children in adult roles and situations.

Many of the children used in the series were recruited from Meglin's Dance School in Hollywood. One of them was Shirley Temple, who made her film debut in the Baby Burlesks at the age of three. Her first studio stand-in, Marilyn Granas, also appeared in a few of the pictures. Neither of the two leading actors of the series, Eugene Butler and Georgie Smith, went on to notable success.

Title: The Runt Page
Release: April 11, 1932
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Raymond Nazarro
Music By: James Dietrich
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Universal Pictures
Run Time: 10 minutes

Shirley Temple, the most famous child star of all time, got her start in the Jack Hays and Charles Lamont Educational Films known as Baby Burlesks. These short skits featured a bunch of toddlers in diapers who depict scenes from famous movies. The first of these was a take-off of The Front Page (later adapted as His Girl Friday) called The Runt Page.

The only reason why some of these short parodies are even still around today are because how much the world loves Shirley Temple. Without her, this would have disappeared a long time ago or have been banned. It was an interesting look at Temple’s early career although it probably would have been better if the adult voices hadn’t been dubbed over the kids!


Title: War Babies
Release: September 18, 1932
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Film Exchanges
Run Time: 10 minutes

The second Baby Burlesk short to be released, and probably the most popular one, is a spoof of the 1926 silent film What Price Glory. Originally to be titled What Price Gloria, it was instead decided to call it War Babies and give Shirley Temple a much bigger and better part than her first film.

Even if I had a hard time understanding what the kids were saying, I liked it more than having the adults dubbing their lines as they did with The Runt Page. I thought War Babies was a much cuter skit than Temple’s first screen appearance- and she even had a few lines in this one. Hays and Lamont may have not been the ideal filmmakers especially when it came to punishing the little actors but you can tell that the little French bar girl was having a good time.


Title: The Pie-Covered Wagon
Release: October 30, 1932
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Music: Alfonso Corelli
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Films Corp.
Run Time: 10 minutes

The first and only western made by the Baby Burlesk series was a spoof of the award-winning silent film The Covered Wagon that had premiered 10 years earlier. Altering the name only slightly to The Pie-Covered Wagon it’s basically a pioneers and Indians type of drama with Shirley Temple being saved just in time by the hero (played by Georgie Smith).

I didn’t enjoy this short at first because it was more about shouting and running around than anything else but then it got better even if it still had an Our Gang feel to it and Shirley had a very small part. I thought the pies as ammunition was hilarious and the dog had some of the best parts. Although the dog did talk once (in a growly weird voice), there was an even better line after the pioneers defeated the Indians:

The hero: “You should have been looking for Indians, not fooling around with bears!”
[The bear is swiftly approaching] Dynamite: “Boss, this bear ain’t foolin’!“

Title: Glad Rags to Riches
Release: February 5, 1933
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Music: Irving Bibo
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Film Exchanges
Run Time: 10 minutes

Unlike the previous Baby Burlesk shorts, this parody is an original about the Gay Nineties period (1890s) in America called Glad Rags to Riches. Shirley plays a showgirl called La Belle Diaperina that doesn’t want to perform anymore but she is trapped by her mean manager who will only release her if she marries him. As usual, her sweetheart saves her in the end.

Temple had a much bigger role than in the past shorts in Glad Rags. She acts, she sings, and she dances! It’s hard to believe she was only four years old when she made this. Actually the whole cast is terrific and they’re all around the same age but Shirley proves that she is most definitely the star.


Title: Kid N’ Hollywood
Release: March 14, 1933
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Music: Alfonso Corelli
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Films Corp.
Run Time: 10 minutes

Kids N’ Hollywood was a satire of Hollywood and some of its more famous actors at the time like Greta Garbo except of course by different names like Freta Snobo. In her autobiography Temple wrote: Kid in Hollywood cast me as a lowly, ambitious scrubwoman, rocketed in one blinding instant from anonymity to movie stardom. Within one year, this preposterous theme would be fact.

I liked this one and again little Shirley Temple steals the show as Morelegs Sweetrick (Marlene Dietrich). She can throw insults like no other, “Leave me, you oily-tongued rascal,” and her small musical number was good too. Her mother sewed most of Temple’s costumes in the Baby Burlesk series and the feathery one in this short was one of her favorites.


Title: Polly Tix in Washington
Release: June 4, 1933
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Music: Alfonso Corelli
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Films Corp.
Run Time: 10 minutes

In Polly Tix in Washington, Shirley Temple plays a girl on the payroll who is trying to corrupt an honest politician who is against castor oil and wants “A full milk bottle and a lollipop in every fist.” Ironically it was Temple who later in life went on as U.S. Representative to the Unite Nations and was also the first woman Ambassador and Chief of Protocol.

This is one of the more disturbing Baby Burlesks and I’m sure censors today would have a field day with it. However, it is probably an accurate portrayal of politics back then since it came out around the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policy. It's just odd seeing a four-year-old play a call girl. Of course, Polly falls in love with the country senator by the end but again, this was an odd little short.


Title: Kid in Africa
Release: October 6, 1933
Genre: Comedy Short
Writer: Jack Hays
Director: Charles Lamont
Music: Lee Zahler
Produced By: Jack Hays
Distributed By: Educational Films Corp.
Run Time: 10 minutes

The last Baby Burlesk short was a satire of Tarzan called Kid in Africa in which Shirley Temple plays a missionary named Madame Cradlebait who is attempting to tame and civilize the cannibals of the jungle. When she is captured and about to be eaten, Diaperzan saves her from her grisly fate and helps her with her mission.

This is the other popular Baby Burlesk that has appeared in several Shirley Temple releases but usually two or three minutes are cut out of it. Usually the part when the cannibals fall down while chasing her (they were actually tripped with a thin wire and several were hurt). I’ve only seen the cut versions so I think it’s one of the better Burlesk’s and the ending is really funny!

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