Syl When I was a child watching Shirley Temple films on television, I wanted to be Shirley Temple but so didn't everybody. I now realize that even Shirley Temple wanted to be Shirley Temple. She plays Sara Crewe, a captain's daughter, who is left in a London boarding school by a mean governess who runs the school. At first, Sara is treated like a princess but when her father is reported dead, she is moved upstairs to a pitiful attic room. She now must serve her former classmates who taunt her reversal of fortune. Shirley Temple is perfect as Sara. Everybody loves Sara except the mean principal. It's impossible not to love her. The fact that this was in color and filmed in Hollywood in 1939 where they did a superb job in recreating London.

bkoganbing The Little Princess finds Shirley Temple put in an exclusive boarding school by her father Ian Hunter who is a soldier and about to be posted to the Boer War. He's also a person of some substance and the schoolmistress Mary Nash is just glad to have her seeing all those pound note signs in front of her eyes. However when Hunter is reported killed at Mafeking, Nash has not a whit of sympathy for her. She takes Shirley out of her really nice room and puts her to living in a small attic room with another girl, Sybil Jason in a similar financial predicament. Why doesn't she just throw her out altogether you may ask? Simply because it wouldn't do the school's reputation any good to throw out the child of a war hero and Nash is all about a respectable image. The woman is a true Grinch.But as it is in Shirley Temple's world, the good grownups way outnumber the bad ones and they include young lovers Richard Greene and Anita Louise, Nash's brother Arthur Treacher who is an old music hall performer though Nash doesn't like that getting out, not respectable you know. Miles Mander who is Greene's crusty, but deep down kindly grandfather and his Indian servant Cesar Romero. And finally she gets help from none other than Queen Victoria herself in the person of Beryl Mercer in setting things right.Treacher was a great deal looser in his performance than he normally is in those butler roles. As for Romero this is the second time he played an Indian in a Shirley Temple picture, the first being Wee Willie Winkie where he also befriends Shirley.But you really got to hand the film to Nash who is such a mean old thing with her exaggerated ideas about propriety and etiquette as long as you can pay for it.The Little Princess holds up very well and is still fine family entertainment for a young audience.

gkeith_1 I loved the dancing. Arthur Treacher is totally fabulous, and so is Shirley, of course. I saw that the fantasy dancing was by Ernest Belcher, whom I knew was father of Marge Champion. I thought that the other dancing, choreographed by Nick Castle, was excellent.Shirley looked a little old for the part, especially the part snuggling up to her father before he went away -- this looked a little smarmy. She was a little too overblown by today's standards; I felt that if her father came back in a few years she would really be a teenager and very jealous if he decided to remarry. Pity the poor stepmother with a possessive/jealous Shirley/Sara on her hands. Alas, that was not to be, however. Don't get me wrong. I have always loved Shirley. She was a darling little child.I remembered that Ian Hunter and Anita Louise were in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," playing the Duke and Titania respectively. Of course my big crush was THE Richard Greene in "Robin Hood" (TV, 1950s). In "Princess" he was just dazzling and scrumptious. He was so cute in the fantasy scene.Miss Minchin. What can I say? Reminded me of nasty Miss Hannigan in "Annie". I loved it when Minchin got hers in the fantasy scene. She played a great villain. She was lovely as a young lady, but in "Princess" she did not have a sympathetic part.Beryl Mercer as Queen Victoria was so precious. I had seen her as Mrs. Dishart in "The Little Minister".Cesar Romero was just divine. I also liked his acrobatic scenes in the movie, "Julia Misbehaves". His character was very nice to Sara in "Princess". The macaw was divine, and beautiful.Loved the tap dancing and ballet scenes best of all. When you see my other reviews, you will notice that I am partial to this.I cried when Sara and her father found each other.

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