movie review of the 1939 "A Little princess"

Let me start by saying I adore and love the story "A Little Princess" it's charming,sweet and one of the best classics,that being said since it is one of my favorite books naturally if there's a movie about it,I have to see it and I have seen three different versions of this movie one made in 1986 which was excellent and I am trying to get a dvd (had a vhs tape,but let a family from my church borrow it,never saw it again) and the 1995 version which is also good. So when I saw there was a 1939 version,naturally I had to get it,boy was I disappointed. This movie is terrible Shirley Temple is no Sara Crewe,she does not embody Sara at all,there's no fierce toughness and imagination that Sara is known for and while I know Shirley was known for her singing and dancing ,I don't think she should have sang or danced in this movie. Lavinia is annoying not spiteful,there's no Lottie ,Ermengarde or Miss Amelia in fact she got replaced by a male teacher and Miss Minchin's brother nonetheless what! Actually since reading the sequal to "A Little Princess" "Wishing for tomorrow" I have found out that Miss Minchin did have two brothers,however that doesn't count because this was shown in the 1930's "A Little Princess" was written in 1881 and the sequel did not come out until 2009 so who cares he should have never been in the movie.

Becky was not as ill treated as she was in the book and one think that would be a good thing,but actually does nothing to make Sara's friendship with her stand out.

The part I hated was the "Hollywood happy ending" where it turned out the father was alive and Queen Victoria shows up to make everything better and while the 1995 one also had the "Hollywood ending" it was actually better because there was something about Liesel Matthew's(who played Sara) heart wrenching cry for her father as she's being dragged away by the police and the moment of realisation when her father finally remembers her and it doesn't hurt that scene is done in the rain which adds to the drama and I know I know I was supposed to talk about the 1939 version,but I just had to mention that bit there. In short out of all the "A Little Princess" movies I have seen the 1939was the worst

Creepy kids

I'll admit it,kids can be creepy,I mean they look so sweet and innocent,but underneath that cute smile and wide innocent eyes,there sometimes beats the heart of a psychotic killer, several examples are as follows.

Esther from the movie "Orphan' how creepy,but oh so adorable was that girl with her darling little dresses and I will admit,I would have dressed like her if my Mom had let me. Not only did this girl have everyone fooled into thinking she was a little angel,she wasn't even a kid at all! but an adult with a rare disease that made her look much younger.

Malcualy Culkin's character from "The Good Son",he had everyone convinced his cousin was going crazyand he caused an accident on the freeway without even batting an eye,nearly kills his little sister and actually kills his baby brother. Nice kid.

Rhoda Penmark from "The Bad Seed" "What will give me for a basket of hugs" this little girl was a psychopath and didn't seem to care,she had everyone wrapped around her little finger except for the maintence man,who knew exactly what she was like underneath that sweet exterior. This girl was not above killing to get what she wanted and didn't even pretend to be upset when her classmate died (she had killed him).

Emily from "Hide and Seek" Dakota Fanning with brunette hair is creepy in itself add that with the fact that she pretends to have an imaginary friend named Charlie well the creepiness factor is upped a bit.

The children from "The Children of the corn" with their cries of "Outlander!' and sacrificing each other to "He who walks among us." these kids are some of the creepiest kids around and it doesn't help that there are no adults present .

T Heather from the book "Wait till Helen comes" while not really evil Heather is very creepy talking to a ghost and creeping and spying on her stepbrother and stepsister.Helen can be considered either lonely or evil depending on how you look at it.

Sophia from the book at "The Ghost at Crotchfield Hall" not only does she look creepy,she's very evil because she wants her brother to die in her place and she tries to change her fate(doesn't work) .

Carol Anne from "Poltergeist" "Theeeeyr'e back!" need I say more.

Stewie Griffin,actually he's funny,creepy,here's a one year old kid who acts like a grown up and keeps trying to kill his mother.

Films based on books written by british Authors and other misc.

There are several books written by British authors . that American movie producers feel they have to Americanize it in order to get people to like. Examples of these are as follows *note* I will only be talking about kids films based on books. On the other hand there are also books written by American Authors that get turned int movies by the UK

"The Indian and the cupboard",the book is British,there's even a glossary of British words at the beginning of the book,the film however is horrendously American.


"Matilda" Actually since I saw the movie before I read the book I was surprised to find that Matilda was written by a British Author and the book is set in England,not America,however I have no problem with the movie since it's very funny.

"A Little Princess",I'm including this one in here because while there are two British versions (1973) and (1986) there were also two live action American versions,one set in the Boer War with Shirley temple as Sara and the set in 1914 New York.

"The Secret Garden" (1986) This is in the list because the actress who played Mary Lennox was American despite the fact that her character is British,however she does slip in and out of a British accent at times .

"Pollyanna" (2004) actually this is one time in which an American film and Book was made British and actually was more like the book than it's predessor.

Literature and movie characters

Charlie and Lola

A British cartoon series about a brother and sister ,Charlie is around 8 or 9,depending on what series you're watching,I read somewhere that Lola is about four,but this does not make sense because in one episode she lost her tooth and in another episode she learned to read and she's old enough to count ,add and subtract,so I'm guessing her age is around five then six.

Lola is a typical child with her problems being very real to her such as getting her hair cut,wanting to be the main character for a school play and becoming upset when she doesn't get picked.The fear she has been replaced by her best friend. Breaking her brother's toy and blaming it on her imaginary friend and various others.

Charlie while patient with Lola will get mad at her ,but will always try to help her with whatever problem she has,no matter how small it might seem to him knowing they are very real to Lola.

As far as wardrobe goes Charlie wears the same thing a t-shirt with his name on it and jeans,Lola however has a far larger wardrobe even her pajamas are different

Peter Pan

In the musicals and Disney version ,Peter comes across as aroogant,but in the books he is sometimes mean such as flying ahead of the Darling children while they fly to Neverland or telling Wendy her Mother will eventually forget her because she'd been gone so long. They way he treats John and Michael and in fact if Wendy hadn't asked if they could come along,I kind of think he would have left them behind.

Dorothy Gale

In the 1939 version Dorothy comes across as a little wimp,but in the book and the sequal "Return to Oz" and any other version ,she's actually quite brave and is actually not sorry when she melts the witch.

The Pevensie Children


Because of the ages of the kids in the new movie,I think people forgot the Pevensie children are not that old when they enter Narnia,fight a war and rule a kingdom,the oldest is barely a teenager and who knows how long he's been thirteen,the middle children are twelve and ten and the youngest about eight. These kids are not even old enough to make decisions by themselves yet they are rulers of a magical kingdom and to top it off they have fought in a war,nearly die(Edmund) and traipse through a snow covered land in an effort to save their brother(again Edmund) with the only adults being Talking Beasts and this is just the first book.

These kids are not perfect they have faults,in the first book Edmund's resentment of Peter leads to his betraying them although if you think about it literally he didn't do it on purpose because at the time he had no idea who the White Witch was,it wasn't until they went back together that he went to the Witch's house did he really betray them,of course he was probably still in denial over who Jadis really was.

Susan loses her faith in the last book which means she is the only one not to enter the New Narnia because she was not there when the train crashed


Lucy struggles with jealousy and self image issues in the third book as

The books don't really give Peter a fault,but the second movie does and Peter comes across as a bit arrogant with anger issues the first time we see him he's in a fight,but since he's sixteen it kind of makes sense,I mean puberty is hard enough the first time,but to do it again .

I don't know of any other literature children who literally grew up without human parents of any kind ( there probably is,but I never read books they were in)and went back to being kids again.

Harry Potter

For the first eleven years of his life Harry is something of a slave and punching bag to his relatives especially his cousin Dudley and it isn't until he's told he's a wizard and not just any wizard but "The Boy Who Lived" and later in the series "The Chosen One" does Harry actually learn to stand up for himself and it helps he has friends to help him,two best friends and a handful of good friends too