TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

howardmorley I awarded this film 5/10 as just about average.It has an infantile plot for children & families around in 1939.For the female teenagers there is Richard Greene (later famous in the 1950s for the British TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood").I only watched it after searching on Youtube for Anita Louise who played another girlfriend Helen Wentworth in the film "Love Letters"(1945) & Titania in "A Midsummers Night's Dream" (1935), both in my DVD collection.The plot closely resembles a British pantomime with wicked witches, ugly spiteful sisters & handsome princes with Shirley Temple playing Cinderella in reverse.I read all the previous user reviews before writing this piece and accept most of their valid criticism of this film, they are evidently more versed in this particular Frances Hodgson Burnett's tale than I am.What film producer ever sticks slavishly to the original book since they mostly want to produce their own version on film.Their most bankable star was Shirley Temple so she naturally had to appear in most scenes, as they hopefully had to provide a dividend to the film company's shareholders.Cinema goers in 1939 who had seen ST sing & dance "The Good Ship Lollipop", would have had an expectation of seeing her in a similar act, in this case the old musical hall song, "Knocked Them in the Old Kent Road".I would have liked to have heard a fuller version of this song with more sung and danced verses.As stated the acting was in almost pantomime style, more suited to young children and their parents.

pawleydeitra I have nothing against Shirley Temple movies,but some of her movies that are based on books are awful and this was one of them.Shirley may know how to sing and dance,but there is a time and place for that and "A Little Princess" should not have been that place. Shirley is nothing special as Sara Crewe in fact she doesn't even look the way Sara should in the book she is described as having black hair and huge green eyes.Shirley had blond curls and blue eyes.If that wasn't annoying enough all of Sara's special quirks and little oddities are written out entirely .The best thing about Sara was her ability to imagine away even the worst situations. Several major characters were not even written into the movie.Instead we're forced to watch the brat sing and dance .My question is this: What was the point of the singing and dancing? It was pointless and plot less.Queen Victoria's appearance confused me to no end after all she's not even in the books.If you want to see better versions watch the 1995 one ,though it followed the same ending (minus Queen Victoria and the hospital) as the 1939 one and was moved from England to New York and Sara was given more friends(even when she was poor) and Amelia left it's still a better choice than the 1939 one.However if you want the best adaptation the 1986 one is faithful to the book

keesha45 While American audiences loved this and all the other Shirley Temple vehicles, across the Pond this story of a young girl refusing to accept reports of her father's death in combat must have struck a responsive chord with war-weary Brits who could easily identify with her troubles. Although the Hollywood film industry has always come under some well-deserved criticism for twisting history and other literary sources in its screenplays, they do get it right at times. The largely British cast and English setting give the classic story the right look and feel, and the romance and song-and-dance numbers don't take anything away from the main storyline. Shirley is even reunited with some of her co-stars from other films. (This includes Cesar Romero as a servant here. 8 of his next 11 films were westerns, a genre he'd never tackled, including a pairing with Randolph Scott as Doc Holliday to Scott's Wyatt Earp and a starring role in a handful of Cisco Kid features. Much later would come famous movie and TV roles as Kurt Russell's nemesis A.J. Arno in several Disney comedies in the 70's, and his most famous part, the Joker, in BATMAN.) In a year when so many great films appeared that were taken from the pages of popular books (GONE WITH THE WIND, THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME,GUNGA DIN, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS,THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, TARZAN FINDS A SON, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK) you can add THE LITTLE PRINCESS. If you never get to read any or all of these books, at least watch the films derived from them. You won't regret it. Dale Roloff

ccthemovieman-1 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.