Movie Review - Honeymoon (1947) comedy starring Shirley Temple stars as a teen bride down in Mexico City who leads an official a merry dance Movie Review

Honeymoon (1947)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Shirley Temple and Franchot Tone in Honeymoon (1947)

Diving into Marriage Down Mexico Way

Having headed down to Mexico City to meet up with her fiancee, Phil (Guy Madison - Till the End of Time), so that they can get married, Barbara Olmstead (Shirley Temple - The Little Princess) begins to panic when he doesn't show up. It is how she ends up at the American consulate and in the office of David Flanner (Franchot Tone - Lost Honeymoon) who makes a phone call and finds out Phil's plane is delayed. But not long after Barbara leaves the office Phil shows up there and sings the praises of her to David who is suppose to be at a recital being given by his girlfriend Raquel (Lina Romay). After telling Phil to go around the hotels to try and find Barbara, David heads to the recital only to be confronted by Barbara again and ending up on a bit of a wild goose chase taking Barbara around the city to find Phil only for things to go wrong.

There is a scene in "Honeymoon" where Barbara starts singing along with a Mariachi band and what you get is Shirley Temple delivering one of those looks. You know the one, the sideways glance combined with a cheeky little smile and in that brief moment she melts your heart. In fairness that is not the only scene in "Honeymoon" where Shirley Temple delivers that look and every time it has the same effect on you. And the then teenage Shirley Temple has other looks in "Honeymoon" which area just as effective with her delivering one of those cute performances which is mixed with the sort of naivety where her character gets a little bit stroppy when things don't go as planned, pouting and getting all sulky.

Shirley Temple and Guy Madison in Honeymoon (1947)

The thing is that "Honeymoon" clearly is built around the appeal of Shirley Temple and as such whilst it is cute fun it has very little substance with Guy Madison basically cast as Phil because he is good looking whilst delivering nice guy with ease and plenty of smiles. To be honest most of the best laughs in the movie end up coming from Franchot Tone who as David delivers the flustered nice guy who ends up involved in trying to help Barbara and Phil get hitched only to end up a fall guy to accidents and also Raquel's father who keeps on seeing him with Barbara and jumps to the wrong conclusion.

What this all boils down to is that "Honeymoon" is in truth just some throw away fun, a cute movie from 1947 which plays to the appeal of Shirley Temple. But it is pleasant, cute fun which is still capable of raising a few smiles here and there.


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