And while Temple had been the center of attention through most all her previous movies, for the first time in her successful career, Temple here is overshadowed by her co-stars, mainly by the unlikely likable pair of Oakie and Greenwood. Sadly, her subsequent films she starred in during the later 1940s, such as KATHLEEN (MGM, 1941) and MISS ANNIE ROONEY (UA, 1942), failed to recapture the magic she once had, mainly due to mediocre scripts that kept Temple from being the super star teenager she could have been like Deanna Durbin, Jane Powell and/or Elizabeth Taylor. After these stardust memory moments are presented, comes Shirley, now age 12, taller, prettier with darker hair, doing her song and dance with top hat, white tie and tales in a very energetic manner, showing that even though she's maturing into a young lady, she still has that gifted talent.
YOUNG PEOPLE is a worthy conclusion to Temple's childhood years at 20th Century-Fox mainly because it includes film clips from her past movies, inter-cutting her scenes with her on-screen father, Jack Oakie, including her "Baby, Take a Bow" number from STAND UP AND CHEER (1934), where Oakie fills in for James Dunn and the Hawaiian dance number from CURLY TOP (1935). But while it all sounds well and good, they find that they are being snubbed by the resident well-to-dos, and learn that the common folks are nothing but phonies who look down on show people. So after their farewell performance, they move to a New England farm in Stonefield where they can live the simple life, and have Wendy educated in a local town school with other children her age. Over the years the infant girl grows into a talented trooper like her "parents," and after some ten years, the Ballantines decide that it's now time to retire, and to give their young "daughter," Wendy (Shirley Temple) the kind of upbringing she very well deserves. So the natural thing for Joe and Kitty to do is to keep the baby and raise it up themselves. At first they think it's some sort of a gag to add amusement to the audience until Joe finds a note written by their closest friend, the widowed Barney O'Hara, who hasn't long to live, explaining that the infant is being placed in their care. The storyline opens with Joe and Kitty Ballantine (Jack Oakie and Charlotte Greenwood), a couple of vaudeville headliners, after finishing their performance, being given a basket, finding a baby in it.
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But by 1940, with the changing of times that would soon lead the country into World War II, and the new likes in movie entertainment, Temple's once popular box-office appeal was now fading, and fading fast.
YOUNG PEOPLE (20th Century-Fox, 1940), directed by Allan Dwan, not only became Shirley Temple's final "little girl" performance, but marked an end of an era to a legendary child star who entertained and delighted movie audiences during the Depression era 1930s, with box office hits that began in 1934.