Shirley Temple
Sara Crewe
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Synopsis
Sara is left at a London boarding school while her father goes to war. News from the front abruptly changes the way the school's headmistress treats her, but Sara refuses to surrender the belief that her father may return. Friendship and imagination sustain a child whose security has depended on adults' assumptions about her fortune.
Cast
DirectorsWalter Lang
Inspirations
The adaptation makes substantial changes to Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, adding the Second Boer War as a historical backdrop and altering the ending. Its fictional family story should therefore be distinguished both from the book and from the war itself.
Behind the scenes
This was Shirley Temple's first feature filmed entirely in Technicolor. Additional scenes ordered by the studio pushed it beyond the cost of her previous films, matching the expanded spectacle of its musical and ballet sequences.
Sources and availability
The synopsis and editorial text were written for this collection. The references below were cross-checked to identify the film and its copy; each editorial section identifies its reference.
Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.
The reference concerns the original work. Restorations, colorization, translations and other territories may have different conditions. This site uses the player enabled by the channel.
Availability checked on September 10, 2026.
Photograph credit
Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.
- Shirley Temple — Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
- Richard Greene — Uncredited · Public domain
- Anita Louise — Max Munn Autrey · Public domain
- Ian Hunter — Elmer Fryer · Public domain
