The Good Ship Sails for Shirley Temple Black

With the passing of famous child actress, Shirley Temple (later Shirley Temple Black), a rare cinematic curio has come to light.

According to Slate, Temple's early films were Baby Burlesks shorts, which satirised popular movies of the day.

The joke was that the actors were all under the age of 5. Historian John Kasson writes of the Burlesks: "The intended humor of these shorts, which seems exceedingly strained to modern viewers, rests on the difference between adult knowledge, desires, motives, and pleasures, and childhood innocence."

In the following Baby Burlesk, entitled Kid in Africa, Temple plays a missionary by the name of Madam Cradlebait, on a cannibal taming expedition in 'darkest Africa'. Whatever about the concerns raised that the film is 'uncomfortably racist', its very awkwardness provides an interesting glimpse into the early years of Hollywood.

Shirley Temple Black: The awkwardness of her Baby Burlesks films.:

'via Blog this'