Yuck. Shirleys dresses look custom made just for her yet they did not fit her. They look like they were purposely cut short...way above her knees!! Shirley was not a baby as the title suggests... she looked so tall and big in the movie yet she is treated like a darn toddler or an infant even.
Tall ? Considering she was barely 5'2" as an adult that seems a funny statement. James Dunn was 6', Claire Trevor 5'3" (I find that most actors fib an inch or two) and she looks pretty tiny next to the rest of the cast.She was six when the picture was released which surprises me because I thought she seemed younger here than in things released earlier. Considering how many pictures she made a year it is hard to know which one was actually filmed first.
Regarding her dresses, you should see my mother's photo album from that era. Her mother was certain she had given birth to the next Shirley Temple (she hadn't) and all of her dresses were rather "north of the knee" as well. The "ballet dress" is definitely too short.
I thought Claire Trevor had a lot of outfits, salon perfect hair, plenty of spending money -dance lessons, new shoes, and ballet dress, birthday party (very sad little cake though)for Shirley and a pretty big apartment for a depression-era wife of an ex-convict who can't keep a job, but that's Hollywood for you.
"I say,open this door at once! We're British !"