THE LITTLEST REBEL (1935) **1/2 This is my favorite Shirley Temple movie. She's poised and charming and clever and cute and wonderful, as always...and they keep some room between the song & dance numbers, and those numbers are of a relatively pleasant vaudevillian nature. Such numbers shouldn't be mentioned without applauding Bill Robinson, either. Get it, my man...young man was pushin' sixty, too. They receive tremendous comic relief support from Willie Best... Willie's role is going to inspire consideration from the pc set, and in this case such consideration is more warranted than it often is. Is Willie a horrid racial stereotype, or is he really more of a black (slave) incarnation of the classic jester/dunce? I think the latter, and played to perfection. Film manages to say a lot about the "collateral damage" of war without getting didactic. Which is nice, because no one wants to be lectured on adult issues by a group fronted by a six-year old girl, especially when she's so right and has so much to say.
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