We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Dickensian Orphan as Child Star: Freddie Bartholomew and the Commodity of Cute in MGM's David Copperfield (1935).
- Authors
Balcerzak, Scott
- Abstract
This article explores the visual spectacle of the cute child, its cultural impact leading up to 1930s America, and its ability to redefine the literary conception of the child protagonist in the early scenes of Metro Goldwyn Mayer's (MGM) David Copperfield. To MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, the formula for success meant big names and during the 1930s, child stars could be just as, if not more, profitable than their adult counterparts. Jackie Coogan already scored a great success as a working-class kid at the beginning of the decade in The Champ. And when Mayer approved producer David O. Selznick's proposal to adapt Charles Dickens's David Copperfield (1849-50), he perceived the venture not only as a chance to adapt a classic, but also as a possible vehicle for the youthful Jackie Cooper, the MGM equivalent to Coogan. The production eventually introduced, however, a new child star, Freddie Bartholomew, who played young Copperfield. MGM's David Copperfield (1935) exists, at least partly, within the context of the child-star era in Hollywood, which showcased such young actors as Banholomew, Cooper, Coogan, and the enormously popular Shirley Temple. Unlike other star vehicles of the period, these films based themselves in a cinematic idealization of cuteness, a reflection of a U.S. depression-era obsession with children.
- Subjects
UNITED States; CHILDREN in motion pictures; MOTION pictures &; children; MOTION picture actors &; actresses; HUMAN body in motion pictures; FACE in motion pictures; DAVID Copperfield (Film); CULTURE
- Publication
Literature Film Quarterly, 2005, Vol 33, Issue 1, p51
- ISSN
0090-4260
- Publication type
Article