Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

When orphan Rebecca auditions for a radio show and doesn’t get the job, her stepfather takes her to live with her Aunt Miranda, owner of Sunnybrook Farm. But the show’s talent agent was all set to hire Rebecca and begins to search frantically for the missing youngster - unaware the pint-sized radio star lives right next door!

Shirley Temple’s child career provides an ideal opportunity to study child stardom because Twentieth-Century Fox made three films in five years in which she not only plays the role of a child star, but also a slightly veiled version of herself: Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and Young People (1940).
These self-reflexive films work to manage discourse about Temple in order to maintain her youthfulness and, hence, prolong her stardom, which was inevitably short-lived. These films mediate how audiences perceive Temple’s image and career, and they follow a biographical trajectory: from a young child who just thinks she is playing when performing (Poor Little Rich Girl), to a seasoned performer at her peak (Sunnybrook), to a retiring star trying to assimilate into the everyday life of a normal child (Young People) [...] Sunnybrook and Young People demonstrate how unbending a star persona can be, even though both films attempt to respond and adjust to her physical and professional development. These two movies take one step forward and one step back; meanwhile, Temple not only grows up, but outgrows her fixed persona.
Chad R. Newsom, Film Criticism, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Spring, 2015), pp. 6-25.

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