Wee Willie Winkie

Wee Willie Winkie (1937)

TEN-SHUN! Shirley is a peacemaker and matchmaker in Rudyard Kipling's most famous story

In 1897, little Priscilla Williams, along with her widowed mother, goes to live with her army colonel paternal grandfather on the British outpost he commands in northern India.

Date of release
1937-07-30
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (36)
Runtime
1h 40m
Genres
Adventure, Family
Director
John Ford

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

Wee Willie Winkie is a 1937 American adventure drama film directed by John Ford and starring Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, June Lang, Michael Whalen, and Cesar Romero. The screenplay by Ernest Pascal and Julien Josephson was based on an 1888 story by Rudyard Kipling that concerns the British presence in 19th-century India. The production was filmed largely at the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, where a number of elaborate sets were built for the film. It is noteworthy for not having any elaborate song or dance routines, which had become staples in Temple's films for 20th Century-Fox.

Production

Production of the film had to be moved from the Fox Studio Lot to Chatsworth, California, owing to intense conflicts taking place between labor unions and Hollywood studios at the time. During one standoff, a Fox studio messenger visiting the set nearly had a light dropped on his head after scolding a stagehand who complained about working conditions.

Until The Little Princess (1939), Wee Willie Winkie was Shirley Temple's most expensive film. Ford was notorious for his distaste of working with child stars, but he was drawn to this project for its large budget and strong supporting cast, including Ford-favorite Victor McLaglen.

According to Temple, this was her favorite of her films: Of all my films I rate Wee Willie Winkie the best, but for all the wrong reasons. It was best because of its manual of arms, the noisy marching around in military garb with brass buttons, my kilts bouncing. It was best because of daredevil stunts with snipers and stampeding horses.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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