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The Littlest Rebel (1935)
In director David Butler's musical comedy (often computer-colorized),
a Civil War saga with child star Shirley Temple:
- the scene of six-year old Southern plantation-dwelling
daughter Virginia "Virgie" Cary (Shirley Temple) at her
birthday party, where the Cary's black house slave Uncle Billy
(vaudeville and musical stage star Bill "Bojangles" Robinson)
tap-danced for the young guests in the dining room, to the harmonica-played
tune of "Turkey In The Straw"
- Virgie's defiant, spunky and spiteful shooting of
her sling-shot at approaching Union commander Colonel Morrison (Jack
Holt), and then bragging to him: "I'm a Confederate" -
he responded: "So you're a little rebel, eh?"; she repeated
her identity, with her arms firmly resting on her small hips: "I'm
not a rebel. My daddy said so. I'm a Confederate"; she also
taunted him by marching back and forth while singing the southern
tune "(I Wish I Was in) Dixie's Land"
- her tap-dancing with Uncle Billy in a slave cabin
(with a harmonica playing "Turkey in the Straw")
- her singing of "Polly Wolly Doodle" (with
Uncle Billy accompanying her on the banjo) outside the jail where
her Confederate officer father Captain Herbert Cary (John Boles)
was incarcerated; she also reprised the singing of "Polly Wolly
Doodle" as the film concluded
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Tap-Dancing to
"Turkey in the Straw"
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"Polly Wolly Doodle"
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'Challenge' Tap Dance: "She
and I"
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- also, Virgie's "challenge" tap-dancing
in the public square with Uncle Billy to the tune of the song "She
and I" - including their tap-dancing up and down a short set
of wooden, apartment house steps (reprising the staircase scene
in The Little Colonel (1935)), followed by their passing
of two caps (one Confederate and one Union) in order to acquire
money for "railroad fare"
- her charming of President Lincoln (Frank McGlynn,
Sr.) by sharing slices of an apple with him, and prompting him to
pardon both Colonel Morrison and her father
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"Virgie" Cary
(Shirley Temple)
Uncle Billy (Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) Tap-Dancing
"I'm a Confederate"
President Abraham Lincoln with "Virgie" - Eating
Slices of Apple
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