Salty sentiment, miniature suspense, and tuneful nonsense combine to make of Shirley Temple's "Captain January" a truly delightful morsel. Miss Temple is a sufficiently important national figure to have given rise to some pretty rabid opinion, both pro and con. At times perhaps there is a little too much of the demonstrative cherubim about her. There might even be some basis for the allegations that she is losing her figure. But when people start calling her a major menace, just put them down as being a little too emotional about their unemotionalism.

"Captain January" is all about a small waif (guess who) cast up by the sea on a lighthouse rock, and two ancient mariners, one of whom keeps the light and unofficially adopts Miss Temple (Guy Kibbee), and the other of whom (Slim Summerville) attempts to alienate her affections by giving her a dancing crane, whom Miss Temple most winningly mistakes for an old acquaintance, thinking him a stork. It is really startling to notice how engrossed one becomes in the ways of the tenuous plot. For example, when Shirley is taking the examination that is to decide whether she may stay with her sea-bitten pals or must go to an institution, one comes remarkably close to the familiar midyear-finals feeling. And when the tension is broken, and Guy and Slim come crashing through the window where they had been watching, one chuckles with re- lief even though he recognizes this as an old, old trick.

Just as there is something quite rugged about a sailor's wooden Virgin-doll, so is there a robust tang in this picture's sentiment, wherein Shirley weeps over just such a doll because Captain January gave it to her and she has been taken away from him. And the songs, "The Right Somebody to Love," "The Early Bird," and especially "At the Codfish Ball," are lilting gaiety