Warner Bros. groomed South African child performer Sybil Jason, who had made an international reputation for herself in British vaudeville with her impersonations of Maurice Chevalier, Jimmy Durante, and Greta Garbo, as a rival to 20th Century Fox superstar Shirley Temple. After testing Jason out in support of such Warners leads as Glenda Farrell, Kay Francis, and Al Jolson, the studio plugged the 8 year-old triple-threat into her own vehicle, granting their new acquisition name-above-the-title status in Nick Grinde's The Captain's Kid (1936). Based on an original story by Earl Felton, Tom Reed's screenplay casts Jason as a precocious but resourceful New England orphan who defies the prohibitions of spoilsport aunt Mary Robson to follow yarn-spinning drunkard Guy Kibbee on a quest for buried treasure. Playing to its star's strengths, The Captain's Kid permits Jason two lively production numbers before placing her in the expected peril in the second act... only to tie everything up in a predictably happy conclusion by the end of the third. Despite her copious charms and obvious talent, Jason never proved a true threat to Temple at the box office and Warners opted not to renew her contract. As fate would have it, Fox picked up Jason's option and plugged her into two of its later Shirley Temple vehicles, The Little Princess (1939) and The Bluebird (1940), her final film. Despite their short-lived box office competition, Jason and Temple remained lifelong friends up until Jason's death at age 83 in August 2011.

By Richard Harland Smith