The Little Princess (1939)

This watery film bears little resemblance to the classic novel. If you are a fan of the books, don't watch this movie! The strident pacing and absorbing characterization of the original novel is diluted into a "star vehicle" film for Shirley Temple. As a childhood Shirley Temple fan who has seen many of her films, I have to say that this is definitely one of my least favorites. In this film, Sara is depicted as a perfect, pretty, charming girl who, despite her miserable situation, remains perky and hopeful. Gone is Sara's magical, mysterious nature with her queer ideas and mystical fairy tales. Now she's an ordinary pretty girl; if the movie was made today, she would be played as a prep. Also, little Lottie is noticeably absent, and instead, there's a pointless plot line about Sara's tutor. And where did the pointless cameo with Queen Victoria come from? All in all, the movie turns out to be another happy-pretty-perky children's flick. I recommend watching Alfonso Cuaron's sumptuous film version which, while the ending is different, still maintains the magical mystery of the original novel.

Fmovies: I wouldn't rank this in the top half of all the Shirley Temple movies of the 1930s. It's not the worst but it's far from her best, BUT it's definitely better than the insufferably-politically correct 1995 remake.

"Amanda Mirchin" as the owner of a school, is the villain in here and Mary Nash did her acting job well because you hate this woman as the film goes on. Temple, as "Sara Crewe," overacted a bit with the fake teary scenes. She was never too realistic with those parts of a movie, but convincing in every other way.

Also, I prefer Temple's more light-hearted films, of which is not one, although Arthur Treacher was a good guy and fun to watch. He does two song-and-dance numbers with Shirley that help bring some brightness to the story.

There are those who claim Shirley Temple couldn't really act--but The Little Princess is living proof that she was much more than just a dimpled tot who could sing and dance on cue. Her tearful reunion with her missing dad (Ian Hunter) in a hospital ward at the conclusion of this classic story should move even the most hardened cynic. Her tears range from joy to hysteria as she tries to tell the shell-shocked soldier that she is his daughter.

This is a lavish technicolor delight with Shirley Temple at 12 doing an expert job as Sara, the little miss who has to bear the indignities of a boarding school once her father has been declared dead in the Boer war. The harsh mistress (Mary Nash) has her stripped of all privileges and makes her live in the attic while becoming a servant in the very household where she was once called "the little princess" by the other girls. There are departures from the novel since the script is given a "Shirley Temple formula" to ensure its success as the right vehicle for her at that time. But the addition of a dream sequence does no discernible harm, nor is the brief song-and-dance with Arthur Treacher to "The Old Kent Road" much of a distraction.

It succeeds in being a heart-warming tale of a girl's courage and determination when it seems that there is no hope of finding her father alive. The ending with Queen Victoria giving Shirley an approving nod, is an added delight. One of Shirley's best performances with a wonderful cast of supporting players: Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Mary Nash, Sybil Jason, Arthur Treacher and Cesar Romero all doing expert work.

The Little Princess fmovies. This agreeable movie is based on the Francis Burnett children's classic novel. 1899, London, irrepressible Sara(Shirley Temple) is a little girl in Victorian epoch sent to boarding school ruled by a harsh,hateful headmistress named Mischin(Mary Nash) while her widowed father(Ian Hunter) is posted in South African -Transvaal- during the Anglo-Boer war. Her daddy is declared missing but is reported killed in action and the penniless schoolgirl must work as a servant to pay her existence. Kindhearted Sara befriends a young enamored couple(Anita Louise, Richard Greene)who help her. Then Sara in search for her dad, haunting hospitals where she encounters Queen Victoria.

Impactful adaptation has Temple as likable child playing, dancing, and singing. Lively screenplay, vivid performances, dazzling scenarios originate classic in film-making. Colorful cinematography in Technicolor by William Skall and Arthur Miller. The picture is brilliant and skilfully directed by Walter Lang, a musical cinema and comedy genre expert. This is Shirley Temple's biggest success(it cost a big budget, over 1,5 million dollars) and also her fist colour, another Shirley's hits are:¨Poor little girl,The little rebel,The little colonel and Little Miss Marker¨among others. It's remade by a TV version(1987) by Carol Wiseman with Amelia Shankley and Nigel Havers and a superior version by Alfonso Cuaron with Sara incarnation from Liesel Mattews(Shirley Temple lookalike role),Eleanor Brown(eagle-eyed Mary Nash role)and Lian Cunningham(Ian Hunter lookalike). This is a masterpiece of kids' classic cinema and you will soon be caught up in its sympathetic and enjoyable world.

Between the ages of 7 and 10, little Shirley Temple was the biggest box office star in the world. But as she grew older, her popularity quickly began to wane. At 11 (though she believed herself to be 10 because her mother shaved a year off her age), Shirley was still quite a child when she made "The Little Princess." But because she was no longer as cute and cherubic as she was at 6, when "Stand Up and Cheer!" first made her a star, it was to be her last successful film in a children's role.

As Sara (a Hebrew name meaning "princess"), Shirley plays her standard rags-to-riches storyline in reverse: Sara's wealthy widowed father loses everything in the Boer War, and her cruel boarding school headmistress Miss Minchin makes her an underfed, overworked servant girl to pay the tuition debt her father owed. Sara goes from luxurious rooms and private tutors to friendless, freezing attics as suddenly as the swinging America of the 1920s sank into the dust storms, breadlines, and squattervilles of the 1930's Great Depression. But where did poor Americans turn to briefly forget all these problems during the Great Depression? To the movies, where Shirley Temple, her unwavering hopefulness (as present in "The Little Princess" as in any of her movies), and her cute song-and-dance numbers -- with titles like "Laugh, You Son of a Gun" (1934), "You Gotta Smile to be Happy" (1936), "Be Optimistic" (1938), and "Come and Get Your Happiness" (1938) -- cheered up the entire nation. The same singing and dancing cheers up Sara Crewe while she's working as a galley slave in 1899 London, as Shirley performs "The Old Kent Road" with her pal Arthur Treacher (her four-time co-star).

In short, "The Little Princess" is Shirley Temple's career in a nutshell. It is a must-see film for both longtime Shirley fans and newcomers.

THE LITTLE PRINCESS (20th Century-Fox, 1939), directed by Walter Lang, based upon the story by Frances Hodgeson Burnett, ranks one of Shirley Temple's best known and most revived feature, as well as her first in Technicolor. Capitalizing on her previous success with screen adaptations to literary children's novels, including HEIDI and WEE WILLIE WINKIE (both 1937), THE LITTLE PRINCESS displays Temple's talent in heavy dramatics at best, especially with her two key scenes, one in which she teary-eyed bids goodbye to her father as he goes off to war; and another where she stands firm, looking angrily straight at her evil boarding school mistress as she is about to slap her face for standing up to her. Like a fairy tale, this production includes good characters along with a wicked one (wonderfully played by Mary Nash), along with some dialog usually found in storybooks, such as one little girl saying on how Sara Crewe (Temple) looks just like a princess, with the overly jealous girl sarcastically responding, "Princess, INDEED."

Set in London in the year 1899, Sara (Shirley Temple) is the daughter of her widowed father, Captain Crewe (Ian Hunter), who leaves her in a boarding school under the care of Miss Amanda Mirchin (Mary Nash) and her brother, Bertie (Arthur Treacher), a former music hall performer, before he goes off to the Boer War. Because Crewe is a well known figure and man of wealth, Sara is given the royalty treatment, as if she were "a little princess," causing jealously amongst one of the other girls, Lavinia (Marcia Mae Jones), who doesn't want to lose her place with Miss Mirchin. After Miss Mirchin receives news from Mr. Babbows (E.E. Clive) that Captain Crewe has been killed in the war, leaving daughter Sara penniless, she, at first, decides to put Sara and her belongings into the street, but Babbows advises her that this would not look good for her or the school. So the only other alternative is to place Sara from her luxurious room into a cold attic, taking her expensive clothing and auctioning it off to pay for her lodging, leaving Sara with only paupers' clothes to wear. In order to earn her keep, Sara must work long hard hours in the kitchen along with another girl, Becky (Sybil Jason), who befriends her. Being treated harshly, Sara becomes a hard and bitter child who tries to be a good soldier as her father had wanted her to be, but finds she's unable to do it, being at times both hungry and cold. Not wanting to believe her father is dead, Sara braves the streets of London at night in hope to one day find him amongst the wounded in the military hospital.

Also in support in THE LITTLE PRINCESS are Richard Greene and Anita Louise as the young romantic couple, with Louise as Miss Rose, an employee of the boarding school who loses her position for secretly meeting with Sir Geoffrey Hamilton (Greene) against the wishes of Miss Minchin; Cesar Romero as Ram Dass, an Arab servant to Lord Wickham (Miles Mander), Sir Geoffrey's grandfather; Eily Malyon as an unsympathetic boarding school cook; and Beryl Mercer as Queen Victoria, among others.

Aside from the heavy handled dramatics that resembles a dark Charles Dickens novel, THE LITTLE PRINCESS does take time for some song and dance, including "Down By the Old Kent Road" (by Arthur Chevalier and Charles Ingle) as sung and danced by Shirley Temple and Arthur Treacher; and as with Temple's earlier classic, HEIDI, there's a musical dream sequence, this one titled "Fantasy" by