Underplayed Gems

Baby Burlesks (1932)

Baby Burlesks poster
Original title
Runt Page
Directed by
Charles Lamont
Genre
comedy film
Country
United States
Runtime
10 min
Rating
5.9 of 10 from 7 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is a series of short comedy films from the early 1930s. They feature a three-year-old Shirley Temple in her first movie roles. The shorts are playful on the surface but were later described by Temple as a cynical exploitation of childhood innocence.

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What happens

Baby Burlesks was a series of Pre-Code short films produced by Educational Pictures in the early 1930s. The series featured three-year-old Shirley Temple in her first screen appearances. In her autobiography, Temple describes the Baby Burlesks series as "a cynical exploitation of our childish innocence," and that the short films were sometimes racist or sexist. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.