Childhood Favorites Adults Still Enjoy

[MissGoddess]

(I wasn't sure where to put this, so I am including it in dramas, though the films can be of any genre).

OK, maybe I'm the only adult who enjoys them...but I kind of doubt it if the truth were told.
Watching part of Little Lord Fauntleroy this afternoon made me think of this subject. I have
always loved that story, it never fails to make me cry toward the end (even with all that nobless
oblige going on). I also like the other Frances Hodgsen Burnett classics that somehow
have lent themselves beautifully to screen adaptations: The Secret Garden and The Little
Princess. I will even add that I would enjoy reading the books again.

What are some movies based on children's (or young adult) stories (or originally devleoped for the screen) that
you enjoy as a "grown up"? Fess up!

P.S. I don't have kids so I don't have any 'scuses for my reverting back to childhood (which
some say I never left!) Those of you who do have them may have it easier when explanations
are called for, I think!

[JackFavell]

Oh, my first thought on reading your title was the book The Secret Garden - and I have my own copy from when I was a child... Alice liked it OK, but I will keep the book when she is done, so I can go bak and re-read it occasionally.

As for movies, I guess the Wizard of Oz will always be tops. I also love Captains Courageous.

[MissGoddess]

What do you think of the movie adaptations of The Secret Garden, Jackie? I must confess I enjoy
both the Margaret O'Brien and the more recent one done in the 1990s, with Maggie Smith.

Ever since I saw the movie and read the book, I've dreamed of having a walled garden...

[jdb1]

I never get tired of Little Women, the Alcott book and the Hepburn/Cukor movie. I loved the book Captain January, and the Shirley Temple movie doesn't disappoint either. I'm also very fond of Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, and I still read Carroll's book from time to time. It's funny.

There are probably lots of others, if we think about it.

[JackFavell]

MissG-

I enjoy both adaptations of The Secret Garden too. The Margaret O'Brien one is just too short is all. I think there was even a TV series that was done once, but I might be thinking of Sarah Crewe. I agree about the power of the book though, and the magic of that walled garden. sigh.

jdb -

I LOVE all the versions of Little Women, but mostly the 1935 one.

I also remember watching a movie with Alice that I just loved. It was about Arthur Conan Doyle, and these two little girls who found fairies in their garden. It's a great little movie, with Peter O'Toole as Sir ACD. The name escapes me.

[MissGoddess]

Little Women, of course! Thanks for reminding me, Judith. And Jackie you'd mentioned Captains Courageous, I love that movie. I think all kids should watch it, especiallyb bratty ones!

I'd love to know more about that Arthur Conan Doyle movie...it sounds charming.

[jdb1]

Wendy, I've seen two English movies of similar theme which seemed to have been made around the same time. One is called "Fairies." I can't remember the name of the other. But I know the one you mean - maybe that one is "Fairies." Quite interesting.

I've also enjoyed both the book and the movie of Anne of Green Gables. I thought Anne Shirley was quite good, and O.P. Heggie as Matthew was as well, although that movie was a very abbreviated version of the first book. The much later Canadian made for TV version with Megan Follows was excellent for Follows' performance and for the fact that it told the whole story.

[knitwit45]

I love Secret Garden, both versions, and The Little Princess (both versions.) Swiss Family Robinson with John Mills, Pollyanna, The Treasure of Matecumbe. But for me, hands down, it's Heidi with Shirley Temple. It was shown each year at Christmas time at our elementary school, and I have my own copy which I watch at least once a year. The Secret Garden was the book Mrs Wayne, 4th grade, read to the class over a very snowy winter.

Great thread!

[MissGoddess]

My favorite Shirley Temple movies are based on classics, like The Little Princess, Heidi (even though the "real" Heidi was a brunette) and Wee Willie Winkie. What a talented creature she was...is!

I've never heard of The Treasure of the Matecumbe.

I love The Parent Trap (Hayley Mills version...with Brian Keith! )

[knitwit45]

Ms. G, it's an adventure story, set in the Deep South, with Robert (hubba hubba) Foxworth, Joan Hackett, Peter Ustinov, Vic Morrow and 2 really cute little boys. The boys run away from a decaying plantation, trying to find a treasure before the baddie (Vic Morrow) does, so they can rescue someone. Along the way, they pick up Fox-ey worth, Hackett and Ustinov.

It is a lovely film from Disney, 1976.

[srowley75]

I've enjoyed charming child star Freddie Bartholomew in almost all of his films - David Copperfield was also entertaining. I have his version of Kidnapped on DVD but haven't gotten around to watching it as yet. I'd like to see the 1940 Swiss Family Robinson, but it's almost impossible to find.

Like Judith, I think Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland still reigns as the supreme version of Carroll's book. It's such a difficult work to properly adapt to film that I continue to wonder why so many filmmakers have tried (I have always despised that 1980s TV version). I still think Disney's borderline-surreal take nails the tone about as well as a film is able to do.

I still adore almost any film featuring Hayley Mills: Whistle Down the Wind, That Darn Cat!, The Parent Trap. To some extent, In Search of the Castaways. I also like the Bobby Driscoll/Robert Newton version of Treasure Island. I still have a vivid childhood memory of trying to watch the last few minutes while my parents kept wanting to change the channel for a reason I can't recall.

[jdb1]

Like Judith, I think Disney's animated Alice in Wonderland still reigns as the supreme version of Carroll's book. It's such a difficult work to properly adapt to film that I continue to wonder why so many filmmakers have tried (I have always despised that 1980s TV version). I still think Disney's borderline-surreal take nails the tone about as well as a film is able to do.

So glad to find someone else who appreciates how very difficult it is to adapt Alice, not because of all the surreal things that happen, but because of the surreal tone of the narration. The Disney studio did an excellent job of melding psychedlic to nursery rhyme to plucky child on an adventure, three genres which are rarely compatible, but which abound in the book. I think a lot of the criticism I've read over the years about this version of the book demonstrate a lack of understanding on the part of the critics. I've enjoyed other versions of Alice for their various elements, but Disney's boys managed to make all of it work, and in a way acceptable across the board for audiences.

[pvitari]

These were the movies (and two TV shows) that made a huge impression on me as a child and I still love to this day:

The Wizard of Oz
Mary Poppins
Peter Pan (TV broadcast with Mary Martin)
Cinderella (TV broadcast with Lesley Ann Warren but now that I'm a grown-up, I love the original Julie Andrews version too)
The Glass Bottom Boat (which I saw at Radio City Music Hall)
The Fighting Prince of Donegal

Moving from childhood into early teens (13 to be precise) -- Ben Hur (1959 version). My aunt took me to see a revival screening in New York City for my 13th birthday and I was completely overwhelmed by the grandeur of the story -- or to be more precise, the way it was presented on screen. (Religious I am not.) They sold a program booklet for the movie at the theater and my aunt bought me one and I pored over it for months and months. The next year when we went on vacation (this was during the first moon landing -- I remember watching it on a tiny little TV in our vacation beach house) I brought Lew Wallace's novel with me and read it avidly. :)

Does anyone here remember The Fighting Prince of Donegal? Disneyfied Irishness and I loved it. I have it on an old VHS tape and I wonder why Disney has never put it out on DVD. I believe it was released theatrically in the U.K. but in the U.S. it debuted on television -- possibly for Uncle Walt's Wonderful World of Color series on NBC but I'm not sure. Since it was made to be seen theatrically, there is probably a very nice widescreen edition available in the vaults -- much like Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, which received a beautiful DVD release in November 2008, with both the TV and the theatrical versions in the set.



That insert picture of the duel on the circular staircase looks like a shot from The Adventures of Robin Hood. ;)

[mrsl]

.
Anne of Green Gables and Little Women are my two from childhood. I read 'Anne' twice in one summer, and I read Little Women at least once a year from about 8 years old to about 13, but my favorite movie was the June Allyson version. I love Kate Hepburn, but I just could not accept her as a tomboy. She did a fine job, but again, I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Anne Shirley was great until I saw Meg Fellows. I should look into getting a DVD of that for myself.

But one I find myself absolutely addicted to as an adult, and I was at least 52 when I first saw it, is Monsters, Inc. I adore Boo and her 'kitty'. I slobber every time he scares her for the first time and how she cringes away from him. Her giggle makes me giggle and I will stop and watch it every time I see it when I'm channel surfing, and I also have it on tape and DVD, so you see, I'm am truly hooked on it.
.

[klondike]

Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, which received a beautiful DVD release in November 2008, with both the TV and the theatrical versions in the set.

Sadly {and I mean as in rubbing my behind & shedding a tear}, back in 2004, I felt I could wait no longer to secure myself a copy of the beloved Alias Dr. Syn [such being the original theatrical title], and in dire contradiction of my rigidly typical Scotch Yankee frugality, I buckled, opened an aesthetic vein, and cast the winning e-bid of 39.85 for a lavishly bootlegged VHS of said long-lost classic, complete with rental-style clamshell case & color-copy artwork.
Truth to tell, e'en had I foreseen a 2008 release, I doubt I could have held out, Spartan though I usually am in the face of most such temptation.
Such is the course of severe moonstruck nostalgia!