A Little Princess (1986)

A British widower living in India with his daughter invests 100,000 pounds in a diamond mine with an old friend. He sends his daughter Sara to a British boarding school for girls after they tour Europe. When he returns to India, he gets a letter from his friend saying the diamond mine was a bust, and soon succumbs to a fever. With her father dead, and no longer having money, Sara becomes a slave to the headmistress's whims. However, she refuses to give in to others who are not kind to her.This is a very underrated drama based on the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was originally shown on PBS in three parts of 55 minutes each. It may not have the quick pace of a 90 minute film, but it more than satisfies in terms of story and characterization.Amelia Shankley of the movie Dreamchild portrays Sara, in an excellent performance. The supporting cast is good too. It should be noted that although there is a Jessica Simpson in the cast, this is not the notorious singer.

I have seen the 1995, 1986, 1973 and 1939 versions of A Little Princess and, of all of them, this is my favorite. The acting is much better than in the more recent 1995 version and I appreciate how closely this adaptation sticks to the book. Amelia Shankley puts in a commendable performance as a most convincing Sara, and Nigel Havers supurbly portrays the festering guilt of the "Indian gentleman". Glowing supporting cast performances, particularly the heartwarming rendition of Ram Dass, played by Tariq Alibai round out this WonderWorks production. The lavish Victorian sets and costumes provide an authentic backdrop. Like the previous reviewer, I can't wait until this one comes out on DVD!

This move was extraordinarily faithful to the book. The characters were for the most part convincing (Amelia Shankley and Nigel Hawthorne especially) and the music and direction were great.I do have a few problems with the film. The main one is that the second tape (it's on three separate cassettes) contains the last 10 minutes of the first tape, which is really horrible editing. Other complaints are that the commercials before each tape are too long, and some of the background noise could be better edited (the group of kids murmur too early or giggle too much, making it appear more low- budget).I was particularly impressed with the loyalty the movie had to the book, and the sympathy you feel for the main character. The scenery was done well and the acting, even in the little parts (the cook's boyfriend, Captain Crew's Indian servant), was excellent.Overall a wonderful film to "curl up" with on a rainy day.

This is the best movie distributed by Wonderworks I have ever seen. The original version in 1939 was cute, and Shirley Temple is cute too, but cutely annoying! In the 1995 version,cool stuff happened, but it almost followed a totally different story! This follows the story with great anticipation, and I think that every actor or actress was picked perfectly for their part. Amelia Shankley did the best job of portraying Sara that I've ever seen. She acted marvelously, and sunk so deeply into the role that you almost forgot she was Amelia. I was never really into classics, until I got A Little Princess for a novel I had to read back in the eighth grade. This may not be very popular, but is definately a movie you gotta own. I would suggest deeply searching amazon.com (that's what I did) because otherwise it would be impossible to find since it went out of business a few years ago. Bottom line: WATCH THIS, YOU'LL LOVE IT!!!!!!!!