The Little Princess

A TALE OF POSITIVE THINKING AND PERSISTENCE
”…This is ging to be our hardest battle, but we’ll be good soldiers, won’t we?”

The Little Princess is a 1939 American drama film directed by Walter Lang. The screenplay by Ethel Hill and Walter Ferris is loosely based on the 1905 novel, A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The story takes place in 1899, and is true to the late Victorian period in England.

When Sara's army captain father is ordered to the Second Boer war, he brings her to the "best" girls' boarding school in England, where Miss Minchin only accepts her after learning of his financial and social status and ensures him that Sara will have the best of everything in his absence.

The unspoiled Sara enjoys her privileged life and makes many friends, but misses her father. When he is reported missing and presumed dead, Miss Minchin, who is still owed money, confiscates Sara's possessions, and keeps her on as a servant, assigning her to work in the kitchen and sleep in a cold attic room.

Sara, refusing to believe her father is dead, performs her chores but always checks new arrivals at the soldiers' hospital in hopes of finding him.

What follows is a tale of positive thinking and persistence.

Ethel Hill was an American screenwriter and race horse owner. One of her best-known scripts is for The Little Princess, starring Shirley Temple.

Walter Ferris was a writer, known for Meet Joe Black (1998), The Magnificent Fraud (1939) and The Gallant Blade (1948). He was married to Violet Kemble Cooper