Peter McGinn
Sep 12, 2020
8/10
It seems every forty years or so, someone makes a new film version of this children’s classic novel. Mary Pickford did it silently in 1920, Walt Disney applied star power in 1960, and now here we have this PBS Masterpiece Theater version.
Both Disney and this adaptation made changes to the story from the novel, though in different ways from each other and nothing distressing. This version seems less dramatic, which allows newcomer actress Georgina Terry to shine as much as standout child actress Hayley Mills did in the earlier version.
Although this version changes the time period and moves the location away from New England, in other ways it remains closer to the book than the Disney version. It reflects the intention of the book, to show how the optimism and joy for living by a child can infect an entire town and improve its collective mood. Any Rand would not have approved of the selfless attitude many of the characters. The ending is slightly more conclusive and also uses most of the cast, but in a wedding scene not specifically described in the book. And not the wedding I expected to see. All in all it is a satisfying film, sentimental without being overdone.