My Favorite Shirley Temple Movie

Here we go…

I’ve never been a huge fan of Shirley Temple’s early films, but The Little Princess is one of my favorites (Another is Heidi). No offense to anyone who likes them, but they’re just not my taste.

In 1939 Shirley Temple turned eleven, no longer a poppet but not yet a teenager, although she was still basically the darling of the Fox lot, as the many pictures of her at her famous bungalow can attest. While Twentieth Century Fox still saw her as a bankable star, it couldn’t get by on Temple’s cuteness anymore, and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Little Princess was a meatier role for her. It still worked in some of the classic Shirley elements, but something was different.

The movie opens in England, and Sara Crewe (Shirley Temple) is on her way to Miss Amanda Minchin’s boarding school in London, where she’ll stay while her dad, Captain Crewe (Ian Hunter), is off fighting the Second Boer War.

Miss Minchin (Mary Nash) is a rather severe woman who reads two-faced, but she’s very indulgent where Sara is concerned because of Captain Crewe’s deep pockets. Sara is to have the best of everything, including the best suite in the school and a seat next to Miss Minchin at mealtimes. Naturally, some of the other students are jealous of her, Lavinia (Marcia Mae Jones) in particular, but Sara is so likeable she wins pretty much everyone over.

After a tearful goodbye with her father, Sara gets into the school routine, and Miss Rose (Anita Louise) is a friendly face, as is her secret fiancee, Geoffrey (Richard Greene), the school riding master, and Becky (Sybil Jason), the scullery maid. Sara meets the kindly Ram Dass (Cesar Romero) who’s the valet of the seemingly prickly Lord Wickham (Miles Mander) next door. Also fun is Mr. Bertie (Arthur Treacher), Miss Minchin’s brother, who was a music hall performer.

Sara thrives at the school until it seems Captain Crewe has been killed in the war, and then she’s treated like the lowest of the low, boarding at the top of the house in a cold little room next to Becky’s room next door, the only remnant of her finery being her doll, Emily. Sara’s sent out on errands at all hours and doesn’t get much to eat or even a fire in her little grate upstairs, but she’s determined to be a good soldier.

Even though things seem hopeless, Sara still has friends, and she’s sure her father is still alive. And since it’s a Shirley Temple film, things can’t end too badly, plus there might be a song and dance or two in store (Sara and Mr. Bertie like performing “Knocked ‘Em In the Old Kent Road” together).

The Little Princess is a delightful film. It doesn’t stick too closely to Burnett’s original novel, which takes place over several years, starting when Sara is about seven years old, and the book’s ending is the opposite of what we see in the movie. Mr. Bertie doesn’t exist in the novel; in that case, Miss Minchin’s one tempering influence is her sister, Amelia. The movie eliminates Captain Crewe’s old friend, Carrisford, but the reason for that is kind of obvious, and I won’t spoil anything if anyone hasn’t seen The Little Princess. 

Incidentally, there’s a BBC miniseries of the Burnett novel that sticks a bit closer to the original plot. My one beef with it is that it starts off with Sara looking twelve instead of seven, but other than that, it’s excellent. Anyway…

What the Shirley Temple version does retain is Sara’s imagination. Well, she has some good dreams, at least, but the only one we see involves her as a princess at court being entertained by dancers and presiding over matters of state. Mr. Bertie is her court jester.

It also keeps in the part where Ram Dass, with Lord Wickham’s help, sneaks into Sara’s room and fixes it up while she’s fast asleep, and when she wakes, there’s a fire in the fireplace and a meal on the little table, which Sara rapturously shares with Becky. In the novel, this is ongoing, with the food appearing twice a day and Sara finding some new treasure every time she wakes up, so that her room becomes a pleasant, warm place instead of dark and cold. It’s one of the nicest parts of the novel in my opinion and happens just when things seem at their worst.

The film seems very in line with 1939, when war was simmering just under the surface and people were thinking about possibly having to say goodbye to their loved ones as they went off to war, so it must have hit some nerves with audiences. The Little Princess brought in $4.8M at the box office, or $201.4M in today’s dollars. It was Shirley Temple’s last successful film, as well. Her next, the oddly Oz-like The Blue Bird, basically ended the first phase of her career. Fox dropped her from her contract, turned her bungalow into offices (see it here) and Shirley was left at lose ends as far as moviemaking was concerned. Well, at least until she briefly landed at MGM and then moved over to Selznik International, anyway.

A Little Princess has worn very well over the years, although it hasn’t been treated all that well, as it’s in public domain and copies vary in quality. The movie is still a lot of fun and a good midpoint film for Shirley Temple, whose career never seemed to stop evolving.

For more fairy tales, legends, and myths, please see Annette at Hometowns to Hollywood. Thanks so much for hosting this, Annette–it was fun! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on Sunday for a new “Cooking With the French Chef” post…

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A Little Princess is available on DVD from Amazon. It is also free to stream on Amazon Prime and Tubi.

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