With Henry Fonda in Fort Apache, John Ford, 1948. Of course I’m going to pick the most obviously auteurist option. (Although I would be remiss to not mention Temple was also a great favorite of Allan Dwan, who directed her in Heidi and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in the late ’30s, and that the feeling was mutual.)
Some wag once remarked that had she never existed, Graham Greene would not have written The Power and the Glory. (Look it up.) Western and particularly North American culture still goes into regular conniption fits over the ostensible sexualization of the child performer; and it is arguable also that had Temple never existed, Toddlers and Tiaras would not, either. She was an exceptional performer and by all accounts a bright and sane person, and she may have been her most on-the-mark critic when she put herself in the category of Rin-Tin-Tin, not by way of diminishing her own gifts, but in recognizing her precocious persona as a shiny object that could bring cheer to fed-up, downtrodden folks seeking distraction.
I’ve only seen a few Shirley Temple films from her childhood – it’s been a very long time, but I’m temped to revisit the other one directed by Ford, “Wee Willie Winkle.” I haven’t seen all of her films, but I remember reading something about Zanuck and Ford consciously trying to make a film from a child’s POV as opposed to another film where Temple would be trotted out like a living Kewpie doll. I’m not sure if this was a first for a film of this kind – it’s certainly become the de facto approach to any family film made by a major studio – but it definitely created the right context for a lot of striking images and some genuinely beautiful moments that were pretty unique to a Shirley Temple film. I think Joseph McBride even made the argument that “Wee Willie Winkle” should’ve won Ford an Oscar, simply for showing what he can accomplish within the strict confines of such a production.
Tag Gallagher says glowing things about Wee Willie Winkie in his book on Ford. I’ve never seen it.
Until I read this Hollywood Reporter article, I had no idea that Shirley Temple’s daughter was at one time the bass player for The Melvins: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/shirley-temples-grunge-connection-as-679538