Wee Willie Winkie (1937)

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  • WEE WILLIE WINKIE


    DIRECTED BY JOHN FORD
    PRODUCED BY GENE MARKEY/ DARRYL F. ZANUCK
    TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION



    Information from IMDb


    Plot Summary
    Cherubic, adorable, and precocious Priscilla Williams lives in Colonial India with her dad,
    a Colonel, and mom, Joyce. She is permitted to mingle with the soldiers.
    One day she befriends an Indian by the name of Khoda Khan,
    who in turn tells her about a prisoner named Mohammaudin.
    She meets with this prisoner, and finds him quite approachable and friendly.
    Then Mohammaudin breaks out, and joins a band of militants who are all set
    to attack the British forces. Fearing loss of lives,
    Priscilla sneaks into the camp of this band, locates Mohammaudin,
    who is their leader, and attempts to try and talk him out of attacking the British.
    She does not know that Mohammaudin and his men have plans to use her as bait
    in order to force the British to give in to their demands.
    Written by rAjOo )


    Full Cast
    Shirley Temple ... Priscilla Williams
    Victor McLaglen ... Sergeant MacDuff
    C. Aubrey Smith ... Colonel Williams
    June Lang ... Joyce Williams
    Michael Whalen ... Coppy - Lieut. Brandes
    Cesar Romero ... Khoda Khan
    Constance Collier ... Mrs. Allardyce
    Douglas Scott ... Mott
    Gavin Muir ... Captain Bibberbeigh
    Willie Fung ... Mohammet Dihn
    Brandon Hurst ... Bagby
    Lionel Pape ... Major Allardyce
    Clyde Cook ... Pipe Major Sneath
    Bunny Beatty ... Elsie Allardyce (as Lauri Beatty)
    Lionel Braham ... Major General Hammond
    Mary Forbes ... Mrs. MacMonachie
    Cyril McLaglen ... Corporal Tummel
    Pat Somerset ... Officer
    Hector Sarno ... Driver
    Lynn Bari ... Crowd Scene Participant (uncredited)
    David Clyde ... Card Playing Soldier (uncredited)
    Herbert Evans ... Soldier (uncredited)
    George Hassell ... Major MacMonachie (uncredited)
    Noble Johnson ... Sikh Policeman (uncredited)
    Frank Leigh ... Rajput Merchant (uncredited)
    Scotty Mattraw ... Merchant (uncredited)
    Lal Chand Mehra ... Servant (uncredited)
    Jack Pennick ... Soldier (uncredited)
    Gurdial Singh ... Servant (uncredited)
    Harry Tenbrook ... Soldier (uncredited)
    Louis Vincenot ... Captured Afghan Chieftain (uncredited)


    Writing Credits
    Ernest Pascal (screen play) and
    Julien Josephson (screen play)
    Rudyard Kipling (based upon the story by)
    Mordaunt Shairp contributor to screen play construction (uncredited)
    Howard Ellis Smith contributor to screen play construction (uncredited)


    Original Music
    Alfred Newman


    Cinematography
    Arthur C. Miller


    Trivia
    The original story by Rudyard Kipling was about a boy, Percival Williams, but this was changed to a girl, Priscilla Williams, in order for Shirley Temple to play the role


    Memorable Quotes
    Priscilla Williams: [on her new nickname] Wee Willie Winkie.
    It does sound like a soldier, doesn't it?
    Sgt. Donald MacDuff: Aye.
    Priscilla Williams:
    Then I'd be Private Winkie!
    Sgt. Donald MacDuff:
    Private Winkie it is. A full-fledged soldier of the Queen!


    Filming Location
    Iverson Ranch - 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA


    [extendedmedia]

    [/extendedmedia]

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited once, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Wee Willie Winkie is a 1937 American adventure film.
    The screenplay by Julien Josephson and Ernest Pascal was based on a story by Rudyard Kipling.
    The film stars Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, and Cesar Romero
    in a story about the British presence in nineteenth century India.
    The production was filmed largely at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif.,
    where a number of elaborate sets were built for the movie.
    William S. Darling and David S. Hall were nominated
    for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction.



    User Review

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited once, last by ethanedwards ().

  • This is actually a pretty great film -- really more a John Ford movie that stars Shirley Temple than "a Shirley Temple movie." From what I've read, Ford was reluctant to make Wee Willie Winkie but Temple charmed the crusty director, who of course cast her as Philadelphia Thursday (what a name!) in Fort Apache. Ford biographer Joseph McBride felt he should have won an Oscar for his direction of Wee Willie Winkie.

  • This is actually a pretty great film -- really more a John Ford movie that stars Shirley Temple than "a Shirley Temple movie."


    Interesting you would say that, Paula. For us, since it is in our "Shirley Temple" collection of movies, we consider it a Shirley Temple movie (and it is one of several movies in a Shirley Temple series, sold as a set), but for someone who was more of a John Ford follower, it would certainly be a John Ford film.


    We have movies on our shelf, with John Wayne, that are not among our favorites, yet we have them, because they are "John Wayne movies"!


    Thanks for sharing that perspective!

  • Chester, I have several sets of Shirley Temple movies -- all those pink box sets released by 20th Century Fox -- and as you can imagine, lots and lots of John Ford movies. And having seen all those Shirley Temple movies, and all those John Ford movies -- Wee Willie Winkie is definitely a John Ford movie that stars Shirley Temple. (Which probably meant that all the Shirley Temple fans would see it -- probably most of them didn't care who directed her films.) Joseph McBride in his Ford bio quotes Darryl Zanuck as stating that they very deliberately planned for it to be a Ford film, but just one that happened to be told from a child's point of view. Here's the quote: "My idea about doing this picture is to forget that it is a Shirley Temple picture. That is, not to forget that she is the star, but to write the story as if it were a Little Women or a David Copperfield...All the hokum must be thrown out. The characters must be made real, human, believable...and it must be told from the child's viewpoint, through her eyes."


    McBride goes on to write, "Wee Willie Winkie provides a case study of how Ford approached what could have been a potboiler and infused it with his own artistic sensibility. If there were any real justice in Hollywood, Ford would have won an Oscar for a film such as this one, whose truly superior craftsmanship is all the more impressive for seeming so effortless. With larger-than-life romanticism, Ford deftly creates a child's storybook vision of the world, then introduces unexpectedly touching moments as reality impinges on the consciousness of the innocent protagonist. This stylized feeling was heightened in the film's original release by tinting the daytime scenes sepia and the nighttime scenes blue, reviving a practice from the silent cinema. In one shot of breathtaking beauty, Priscilla, left behind in a mountain tent, watches through a translucent veil as the rebel horsemen ride off to battle; it is as if the child is seeing the events of her life projected on her own inner movie screen."


    There's a lot more about Ford's style and themes infused into Wee Willie Winkie but you get the drift. ;) It is visually such a lovely movie -- I can think of all sorts of shots that linger in my memory. It's not just a skillfully-made piece of popular entertainment, like many of Temple's films, it's a real work of art.


    And Victor McLaglen as Sergeant MacDuff and Cesar Romero as the Afghan leader Khoda Khan nearly steal the whole thing! ;) They're both absolutely wonderful.


    I probably have several hundred DVDs of movies that aren't all that great, but I bought because they star a favorite actor or were directed by a favorite director, even if this or that movie wasn't his best work. :)