Plot
Shirley Blake (Shirley Temple) and her mother Mary (Lois Wilson), a maid, live in the home of her employers, the rich and mean-spirited Smythe family, Anita (Dorothy Christy), J. Wellington (Theodore von Eltz), and Joy (Jane Withers). Shirley's aviator father died in an airplane crash before the film opens, and she now spends most of her time at the Glendale, California airport with her godfather, bachelor pilot James 'Loop' Merritt (James Dunn), and his dog Rags.
When Mary is killed in a traffic accident, the Smythes make plans to send Shirley to an orphanage. However, Uncle Ned (Charles Sellon), the cranky, wheelchair-bound patriarch of the family, is fond of little 'Bright Eyes' (as he calls her) and insists that she remain in the house. His relatives grudgingly comply with his wishes, although they make her feel unwelcome. A custody battle for her ensues between Loop and Uncle Ned. The impasse is resolved when Loop, his fiancee Adele (Judith Allen), Uncle Ned, and Shirley all decide to live together.
Read more about this topic: Bright Eyes (1934 film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)