It’s a silly old teen-movie; the few scenes with David Niven are actually funny, and Shirley Temple was very pretty and lovely, but it’s not the kind of movie I’d watch again. Mostly because I’m no more a teenager, otherwise I’d probably like it more. It has pros and cons.
Corliss Archer is a 17-year-old girl (Temple: she was 20-21, but could very well be 17). To make her boyfriend Dexter jealous, she writes in her diary that she loves and has kissed Kenneth Marquis (Niven- read mar-cu-is, not the French way; I thought he was called Marcus until I saw it written down) because she will give her diary to a friend who offered to bind it for money, and she knows that he will read it, and words will get out to Dexter.
Marquis is a very rich man who has been married and divorced three times already. Corliss’ father represented his third wife in the divorce case.
One night she has Dexter take her to the Penguin club, where illegal gambling goes on: exciting for teenagers apparently, but then there’s a police bust in the place and the kids hide in the basement. When they can’t get out they are forced to stay there a long time. When her parents get back home and see she’s not home they worry. They call her friends and the police too. At 5am she manages to get home and pretends to have an amnesia like she saw in a movie to get away with it.
She acts like she was 9 years old with no memory of everything that happened afterwards. When that kid brings her diary back, her parents think that hearing what she wrote in it might help her memory, so they read what she wrote about Marquis. They go crazy, specially her father.
When summoned, Marquis finds it amusing to tease the man and says it’s all true. At this point Corliss comes clean, but with no proof to help her and Marquis right there to say that they are engaged, her parents don’t believe her.
Marquis even bribes her best friend to deny that she saw Corliss making it all up, and gets the news out to the papers.
At one point, her mother thinks it’s useless to fight against it, and that if Corliss is truly in love there’s nothing they can do or should do… so Archer tells Marquis that he consents to the wedding!
Marquis doesn’t know how to get out of it, and it seems they’ll have to get married although neither of them actually wants it.
Finally Dexter tells Archer that he has proof that Corliss was with him that night, and therefore that Marquis lied about it, so the marriage is called off and Archer fights with Marquis (outside the house so that we don’t see it, but we see Marquis with a black eye later).
The end.
I liked Corliss, and the scenes with Marquis were funny, but I found her father really really annoying, always shouting and losing his temper, and never listening to anyone. Dexter had tried to talk to him before but he wouldn’t listen to him! Mrs Archer didn’t do much, other than saying “my baby” or “try not to lose your temper dear”
Well, needless to say without David Niven this movie wouldn’t be worth more than a simple mention because of Temple’s presence. He provided all the fun, when he said “shall I call you dad?” to Archer who was basically the same age. Marquis was 37 and Archer was not older enough to be his father, but mostly amusing to him because Archer dislikes him openly.
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