The King and I 1956 - The much-loved family classic

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IMDB Rating: 7,5

Director: Walter Lang
Main Cast: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders, Rex Thompson

"The King and I, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's 1951 Broadway musical hit, was based on Margaret Landon's book Anna and the King of Siam. Since 20th-Century-Fox had made a film version of the Landon book in 1946, that studio had first dibs on the movie adaptation of The King and I. It typifies the elaborate Broadway musical adaptations with which Hollywood studios often tried to fight the advance of television of 1950s. In general, The King and I tends to be somewhat stagey, with the notable exception of the matchless 'Small House of Uncle Thomas' ballet, which utilizes the Cinemascope 55 format to best advantage (the process also does a nice job of 'handling' Deborah Kerr's voluminous hoopskirts) to counter the smallness of the TV screen, offering equally grand set design, costumes, and cinematography. Most of the Broadway version's best songs ('Getting to Know You', 'Whistle a Happy Tune', 'A Puzzlement', 'Shall We Dance' etc.) are retained. None of the omissions are particularly regrettable, save for Anna's solo 'Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?' This feisty attack on the King's chauvinism was specially written to suit the talents of Gertrude Lawrence, who played Anna in the original production; the song was cut from the film because it made Deborah Kerr seem 'too bitchy' (Kerr's singing, incidentally, is dubbed for the most part by the ubiquitous Marni Nixon - who had been responsible for Natalie Wood's singing voice in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn's in My Fair Lady). So the songs and performances are equally impressive: Yul Brynner - being the main attraction of the movie - won an Oscar for his career-best performance as the King of Siam, the role that made him a star and with which he will forever be identified." - www.allmovie.com

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The little princess 1939 - Shirley Temple's first Technicolor feature

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031580/?ref_=nv_sr_1
IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: Walter Lang
Main Cast: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter, Cesar Romero, Mary Nash

Shirley Temple was at her most engaging in this handsome adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's story, playing plucky Sara Crewe, who finds herself orphaned and reduced to near-indentured servitude at the boarding school where she was formerly a student. Director Walter Lang manages to balance the drama, the little bits of song-and-dance (mostly courtesy of Arthur Treacher), the comedy, the romance (provided by Richard Greene and Anita Louise), and the Technicolor glow of the production, creating one of Temple's most enjoyable movies. Lang's handling of the actors is lively, engaging, and smooth - he never lets the splendor of the Technicolor shooting, or the lavish sets, stand in the way of moving the story forward or letting his actors do what they're there to do - the result is a set of highly memorable portrayals in an exquisite screen setting, presenting late Victorian at its most opulent and beautiful (and, at times, cruel). This is the kind of storytelling in which the old Hollywood had no equal, and looking at the pacing, drama, humor, and fantasy elements, one wonders what Lang might have made out of a movie such as Mary Poppins if he'd had the chance to work on that a quarter century later (not that Robert Stevenson did a bad job with the latter...). But at the center of this movie's success is Temple, nearing the end of her childhood appeal but able to flex some real acting muscles, especially working in the same scenes with villainous Mary Nash. - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-little-princess-v29595/

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