Little Lord Fauntleroy **** (1936, Freddie Bartholomew, C Aubrey Smith, Mickey Rooney, Dolores Costello, Jessie Ralph, Guy Kibbee) – Classic Movie Review 5226

Producer David O Selznick and director John Cromwell’s lovingly crafted 1936 children’s film finds the perfect star in Freddie Bartholomew as little Cedric (‘Ceddie’), aka Little Lord Fauntleroy. It follows a once famous 1921 silent film in which Mary Pickford starred as both little Cedric and the widowed mother he lives with.

Bartholomew plays a young New York brat who finds out that he is the long-lost heir to an English aristocratic country seat and a fortune, and is sent over with his mother to Britain to live with his grandfather, the aloof and chilly Earl of Dorincourt (C Aubrey Smith), who oversees his trust fund.

This is a finely performed, beautifully honed version of the Frances Hodgson Burnett book, with a polished screenplay by Hugh Walpole. Maybe the antiquated material is creaky, mushy and sentimental, but the movie plucks at the heartstrings with unerring accuracy.

The fine cast – Mickey Rooney as Dick, Dolores Costello as ‘Dearest’, Jessie Ralph, Guy Kibbee, Henry Stephenson, Constance Collier, Una O’Connor, Ivan F Simpson, Helen Flint, Eric Alden, May Beatty – and the plush sets designed by Sturges Carne are both huge pluses. Charles Rosher’s black and white cinematography and Max Steiner’s score are assets too.

Richard Schayer, John Cromwell and David O Selznick worked uncredited on the screenplay.

It was remade in 1980, with stars Ricky Schroder, Alec Guinness, and Eric Porter.

Watch free on the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/little_lord_fauntleroy

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5226

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