Product Description

When Ching-Ching's (Shirley Temple) missionary guardians are killed by Chines bandits, she must fend for herself on the streets of Shanghai. Taking refuge from the rain in a car's open trunk, Ching-Ching wakes up to find the car on a ship bound for America. The car's owner (Robert Young) is thoroughly charmed by the lost child, and proposes a temporary marriage to another passenger (Alice Faye) in order to give her a proper home. But when the two adults meet in divorce court, it's up to Ching-Ching to make them realize that they are in love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54341 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2008-04-22
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 87 minutes

Customer Reviews

Shirley Temple and Alice Faye charm in delightful musical
STOWAWAY is one of Shirley Temple's best films, from her middle years with Twentieth Century-Fox. She gets to speak in fluent Chinese and impress with her impersonation skills.

She plays Ching-Ching, the enchanting young ward of two Chinese missionaries who are killed. Ching-Ching is smuggled away to Shanghai by the faithful Sun-Lo (Philip Ahn), only to get mixed up with carefree playboy Tommy Randall (Robert Young) after taking refuge in the trunk of his car. The car is loaded into the cargo of a luxurious ocean liner, of which Tommy is a passenger. Thus, Ching-Ching becomes the 'stowaway' of the title.

Alice Faye turns in a great performance as Susan, another passenger on the ship, traveling with her prospective mother-in-law (Helen Westley). All kinds of misadventures and misunderstandings occur before Ching-Ching ultimately brings together Tommy and Susan. Temple displays her uncanny skill for impersonation with her delightful takes on Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire!

Shirley Temple sings "Goodnight My Love" (later reprised by Alice Faye with different lyrics), "You Gotta S.M.I.L.E." and "That's What I Want for Christmas"; Alice Faye performs "One Never Knows". Truly a delightful film.

One of Shirley's best but a nothing package.
It is not easy to classify the films of that phenomenon Shirley Temple. You either love 'em or hate 'em and there is not much in between. For what it is worth, this is one of the better ones and a smash in its day. Shirley plays an orphan in the orient, of all places, complete with Chinese sayings and dialect - all pretty hard to stomach but still impressive for a kid performer. The pluses for this film is that there is a quite exciting story to tell and there are some flesh and blood roles for the adults. Robert Young is a convincing playboy and Alice Faye, emerging at the time from her Harlow look alike days, performs 2 great songs, the signature "Goodnight my Love" which became a huge hit and the stunning "One Never Knows, does One" filmed at the entrance to a moonlit balcony with Faye in closeup. No wonder she became a superstar. Her warm contralto sounds superb and she looks sensational.

The DVD print has been restored and is good but the soundtrack does not seem right with a sort of echoing resonance to it. There are no extras so I would not really say this DVD is great value.

Shirley Speaks Chinese!
Shirley Temple is in Shanghai for this feel-good musical-drama-romance. She is an inadvertent stowaway in this story and even speaks in Chinese quite a bit. In addition she relates a few profound and touching Chinese sayings and does a cute song on stage on the boat.

Looking after her are the adults leads: Robert Young (who looks very young in here) and Alice Faye. Also fun to see, speaking of young, is Arthur Treacher, who has some funny lines.

There is not a lot of funny material in here but it's a nice film and definitely good addition to any Shirley Temple collection. I also saw a colorized VHS edition of this, and it was one of the better jobs in that regard, but I'll take the sharper black-and-white DVD transfer any time!