What's been keeping Shirley Temple, the curly-haired child star of the 1930s, from being a heroine to a whole new generation of kiddies?
FoxVideo, which already has 20 of Temple's movies on video, thinks it has come up with an answer: color and marketing.
If a movie is not in color, many of today's tots lose interest in it after a few minutes. And the movie has to be marketed to them--and their parents--in such a way as to make it a must-see.
So far, the wholesome but black-and-white Temple movies such as "Heidi," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "Wee Willie Winkie" have been largely geared to the classic-film market, not to children. But starting Tuesday, that's changing.
The first of Fox's colorized and repackaged Temple movies hits the market--"Heidi" (1937), "Bright Eyes" (1934) and "Dimples" (1936). A new one will come out on the first Wednesday of every month until all 20 are released.
The list price will be $15 (though the black-and-white versions are still $20). But many stores undoubtedly will offer discounts in hopes of stimulating impulse buying.
The shrewdest marketing ploy, though, is hitching Temple's star to "Mrs. Doubtfire," which FoxVideo is also releasing on video Tuesday. There's not only a rebate program linking the Temple movies to "Mrs. Doubtfire," but the Robin Williams comedy also includes a trailer for the colorized series.
Behind all this Temple sunniness lurk some storm clouds.
In today's kiddie-oriented videos, painstaking care is taken to make sure that children see only images of racial equality. In the Temple movies, though, that's not the case. Black actors such as Stepin Fetchit, Willie Best and Bill Robinson are routinely presented in roles that, by today's standards, are demeaning stereotypes.
Bruce Pfander, senior vice president for marketing at FoxVideo, says the company has received no complaints about racism in the Temple movies, which have been very profitable on video in the black-and-white versions.
"After all these years, no one has complained to us that the movies are offensive," he said. "If there had been complaints, we would never repackage and re-promote these movies. The last thing we want to do is offend anybody."
Anticipating a problem, though, FoxVideo had the movies rated. So if you buy the Temple movies, check the ratings. "Heidi," for instance, is a G, which means there's nothing deemed potentially offensive in it. But "Dimples," which features Stepin Fetchit, gets a PG--for historical racial stereotyping. "Bright Eyes" also has a PG rating.
