Darlings, This Was My First Childhood Bitch!!!!!!!!!

Just look at this photo, girls!!!!!!!!! You can certainly tell I am not talking about my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Compton!!!!! I think I have mentioned her on here at points, and, believe me, she was a piece of work! Not to mention she is alive out in California someplace! I thought she was old when I had her over fifty years ago! She must be 150 by now!

But back to the photo. As you can see, the child being menaced in this pic is Shirley Temple. Now, lambs, I am sorry, NO ONE menaced Shirley Temple, and those who did automatically were elevated to Grade A Bitch. Even Jane Withers, as a child, as witness her performance opposite Shirley in 1934's "Bright Eyes."

The actress seen here with Shirley is Mary Nash, and the character she is playing herein is this week's Bitch Of The Week!!!!!!!

The winner of this week's Raving Queen Bitch Of The Week Award is Fraulein Rottenmeier in "Heidi."

How much more appropriate a name for a bitch can that be???????????

For those who may not remember, or have never read the Johanna Spyri children's classic on which it is based, Farulein Rottenmeier is the villain of "Heidi." She is Herr Sesemann's housekeeper. Sesemann is the father of the crippled girl, Klara (played in the film by Marcia Mae Jones) whom Heidi becomes a companion to. Rottenmeier wants to keep her job forever, so that means Klara must stay dependent. But when Shirley/Heidi comes along, and talks of Independence, and actually works with and succeeds in getting Klara back on her feet, the Bitch Fraulein feels pretty threatened.

And, of course, in the context of Hollywood movie, morality, she is an ugly, embittered, repressed spinster!!!!!!!! But a lesbian???????? In a Shirley Temple movie??????? NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why was she my first childhood bitch???? Even in the book, a picture version of which I first had, I hated her. And in the Temple film, this character, played by veteran Mary Nash, is truly hateful. (It is interesting how memories morph; I had thought this role had been played by Gale Sondergaard, looking a bit like Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca." Nash never gets that distinctive enough look, but her meanness is right on target!!!)

I remember one afternoon we were visiting my aunt Martha and uncle Jack in Cedar Grove. Darlings, you would just LOVE Cedar Grove! I mean, the Friar Tuck Inn, and everything!!!!!!!! Honey, I am sure if that is still there it beats out Graydon Carter's clip joints by leaps and bounds!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, this particular afternoon, I was watching TV and "Heidi" came on. Of course, I watched everything with Shirley Temple. What I recall most vividly is in the film, at least, Heidi had this glass snow globe that I think her grandfather gave to her. One day she and Fraulein Rottenmeier get into it, and the bitch takes the globe from Heidi, smashing it to the ground in front of her!!!!!!!! This was the first time I experienced such hate for a character!!!!!!!!!! Not even the Witch "The Wizard Of Oz;" in fact, before I got the whole MGM/Garland thing that all us queens get, I LOVED the Witch!!!!!! Well, maybe not love, but she DID have what I thought at the time was a fabulous castle, she had the Winged Monkeys to do her bidding, not to mention the Winkies; she had that flowing long dress, hat and broom, with a tinted green face, and she flew through the air!!!!!!!!! What more could I want??????? I still recall how, the morning after my first 'Oz' viewing, I drove my mother crazy by repeatedly, with toy broom in hand, leaping off the rim of the living room love seat, trying to propel myself into air, shouting, "To the Emerald City, as fast as lightning!"

But Frauliein Rottenmeier, as befits her name, was rotten to the core!!!!!! When she smashed that snow globe, and sneered viciously, for the first time I experienced such revulsion I wanted to put my fist right through the set, and belt her in the mouth!!!!!!! Which, of course, I did not, because I couldn't!!!!!! But I am telling you, if anyone had done that to ME, in real life, it would have been an altogether different story; I would have kicked that bitch in the shins until she bled!!!!!!!! Just ask Katina Mataras!!!!!!!! But, then, I was always more Jane Withers than Shirley Temple!!!!!!!

In the movie, things go from bad to worse. In a considerable plot departure from the book, the writers come up with Fraulein absconding with Heidi, attempting to sell her to the gypsies. Her grandfather finds them, and pushes the old hag into the snow so hard I thought he did her in!!!!!!!! Good for him!!!!!!! And the film should have ended with THAT being her comeuppance. But the whole thing comes to a head, with Shirley and Gramps in the police station, headed by Sig Ruman (six years before portraying Louis Bouriette in "The Song Of Bernadette"), and Fraulein increasingly distressed by the arrival of Herr Sesemann, because she knows the jig is up, and she will be out of a job!!!!!! Which is how the film leaves her--kind of hanging!!!!!!!!!! Better left to let her freeze in the snow!!!!!!!!!!!

Girls, even as a child, I knew a bitch when I saw one!!!!!!!! So, though fictitious, Fraulein Rottenmeier is Every Child's Nightmare. At end of the film version of "Rebecca". Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) burns in Manderly's flames!!!!!! Too bad Rottenmeier could not have been thrown in with her!!!!!!!!!!! And if this character had REALLY been around in 1937, when the film was made, there is no doubt she would have been working for the SS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is it with uppity housekeepers???????? It's all part of the Servant Problem, I guess!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fire this Fraulein on the spot...........and then grill her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!