Southern civil war officer John Boles goes on the run behind enemy lines, leaving his household at the mercy of invading northern troops. Sweet Shirley Temple does all she can to aid mother Karen Morley and slaves Willie Best and Bill Robinson, befriending the pickaninny children and cheering them up when they're blue. Black shoe polish turns her instantly into a black child, fooling all but one northern soldier and none of the audience. She works her way into the heart of Northern officer Jack Holt and when the agonies of the war leads to tragedy, Temple must continue to help out daddy while remaining continuously cheerful.While this remains entertaining simply as a Shirley Temple vehicle, as history, it is hogwash. Temple further goes down cloying territory with a re- written version of "Polly Wolly Doodle", later parodied for its sickening sweetness by Julie Andrews in "S.O.B.". The other major flaw is that Temple is totally miscast as a supposed Southern child, a part that should have gone to the Atlanta born Jane Withers. I can understand the black adults being loyal to protecting Shirley but Boles and Morley are far too nicely presented as slave owners, a stereotyped presented in Hollywood seemingly for decades. All is forgiven though when Shirley and Bojangles do their sidewalk dance in exchange for train fare to see President Lincoln, an embarrassingly absurd finale.

10/10, of course. Song and dance movies are my favorites, and you know that.Bill Robinson (Mr. Bojangles IRL) was the absolute best master tap dancer who ever lived. He was very famous for his stair dance. In this movie, he and Shirley dance on a few short stairs, but in another one they tap dance up and down quite a long flight (can't remember which Shirley movie). It is too bad racism kept him from being the greatest dance star of the movies, and that his roles were always/usually household staff. Gentlemen named Astaire, Kelly and O'Connor were supposedly the best tap dancers, and Bill shamefully didn't get their leading roles. I love them all, however. The best women tap dancers were Eleanor Powell and Ann Miller among others, plus of course dear little Shirley Temple. I think Bill may have taught her some steps, however.I like Willie Best in this movie. You have to be a very smart actor to play a dumbbell. Just ask the late, great Marilyn Monroe. Willie got lots of lines, not to mention punch lines, so he was never in this movie the under-5 actor who only said a few sentences. James Henry was talked down-to a lot by Virgie/Shirley, and I feel that that was not only racism but the usual disrespect/depiction of 1935 plus Civil War era of Caucasians ordering African Americans about.1938 saw John Boles again play Shirley's Army father in "The Little Princess", this time in the Boer War. 1936 saw Jack Holt portray Mr. Burley in "San Francisco" (starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Jeannette MacDonald).I liked Mr. Lincoln, up to a point. Virgie must have been starved. Abe gave her those apple slices. I feel that Virgie and Uncle Billy did not sing and tap dance enough on their way to the White House, because all I could tell was that they needed money for their train fares and it was not shown if or how they ate any food. Too bad Mr. Lincoln did not offer Uncle Billy any apple slices. Lincoln IRL was not necessarily an abolitionist, and he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation as a political move. He was rather racist, despite what you may have been told. I imagine Uncle Billy was just as starved as Virgie. The racists were not all in the South.Virgie's mother and father were superb. Did Mrs. Cary have consumption? John Boles played good fathers. In this movie, I liked him in both the Confederate as well as Union uniform. He cut a quite dashing figure.

The Littlest Rebel is probably one of Shirley Temple's infamous and most controversial movie that she has starred in. It is extremely sympathetic toward the Confederate side of the Civil War but the eternal charm that Shirley Temple gives in each of her movies can't help being repressed.The story is simple. Shirley T plays a little Southern girl named Virgie Cary a adorable moppet who seems to hold the social graces that would put Emily Post to shame. Because she is so cute and polite, everyone finds her irresistible. Oh! She is also a TERRIFIC tap dancer to boot! One sunny afternoon (April 12th) while she is celebrating her birthday, news flies in the door that Fort Sumter was fired upon and The War between the States has begun! Virgie is the child of Southern parents on a beautiful plantation with the happiest bunch of slaves that you ever seen---so we know what side her father will fight for.Life for Virgie changes somewhat after that. Like any child in the Civil War, she misses her father who has gone off to battle. But Virgie has incredible spunk and bravery when she confronts the "Yankee" army and actually seems to want to do battle with them when some of the soldiers get mean with her and try to steal from her home and pushes her mother roughly down the stairs. Luckily, her bravery and stubborn pluck captures the heart of a Union Commander who later tries to help her father. When Virgie's mother is stricken with an illness and dies, her father is captured and the kind Union Commander is also implicated. There is only one person who can save them....Can Virgie charm the socks off of Abraham Lincoln in Washington D.C and get a reprieve for them? African American's will not view this movie favorably because it shows a preposterous view of the treatment of slavery. The slaves seemed so happy that they don't want to leave. The Cary's seem to be kind slave owners---the slave quarters are furnished tastefully like a roadside motel. There are no beatings or mention of abuses. Of course, there are dreadful black stereotypes like John Henry.But the most interesting actor besides Shirley T is Bill "Bojangles" Robinson whom I consider one of the greats in tap dancing. Temple and Robinson enjoyed a very close friendship outside the studio. It was said when Temple saw Bill Robinson on a movie set, she had a mad compulsion to run up to him, take him by the hand, tug at him and look into his eyes and smile. When Bill Robinsonlooked down and saw her tugging at his hand, he couldn't resist her childish charm and smiled back at her. Temple maintained that "Uncle Billy" was the one adult who never treated her like a child but as an equal adult. Robinson said that Temple was one of the most talented young person when it came to dance--all he had to do was show her a routine twice and she picked it up immediately. Robinson also displayed a fatherly protective figure with Temple. A story was said that when Temple married John Agar, Robinson congratulated him but said "Be good to my little girl or I'll kill you" If you watch the interaction between these two on film, you could see Shiley Temple's eyes light up like a Christmas tree. I am sure that they felt some type of respect for each other off screen that carried into their outside lives. Relationships between black and white actors were not forbidden at that time but they were not encouraged. But we could say Temple and Robinson have been dubbed the first inter-racial couple on screen.Despite the false picture of slavery, The Littlest Rebel entertains us thanks to the talents of Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple. There is a tap dancing scene halfway in the picture that can't be missed. Sure, the plot is campy and corny, and Shirley's sugar sweet demure is gut wrenching---but for some reason it entertains.

The previous review of this movie begins with the question "Can you get past the racism of the era?", and concludes that you can't. I won't argue that you should "get past" the racism. Rather, I'd argue that you need to look right at it and see that it is not simple, and not just a matter of stereotypes.Yes, Willie Best's character is an embarrassment when it is not infuriating. There's no arguing that.But Bill Robinson's character is very different. He is the one on whom Mrs. Cary relies when her husband is at war, he is the one who makes it possible for Cary to get back to see his wife as she is dying, etc. He is also the one who makes it possible for he and little Virgie to get to Washington and, eventually, plead her father's case with President Lincoln. In short, he is the character who makes pretty much everything good happen. Yes, there is injustice in that he should have received higher billing as a result, and he should have been in the final shot with Temple, as he was as important as her father and more important than Jack Holt. That was unfair, and though probably based on what Fox thought American audiences of the time would tolerate, nonetheless a concession to the racism of the time. But for its time, this movie is remarkably devoid of the "dumb and happy darkie" stereotypes of the time that are so infuriating.Furthermore, little Virgie never once treats "Uncle Bill" as anything less than an equal. Nor do her parents ever treat him disparagingly.Race relations in this movie are not perfect. But neither are they stereotypes. There is no point on zooming in on Willie Best's character and going through all the modern clichés of moral superiority, only to dismiss it. The movie deserves better than that.Yes, the dancing by Robinson and Temple is a wonder. But this movie has other things that are worth examination as well.Forget what you may have been told about this movie and try to watch it with an open mind. You won't waste your time.