This was actually one of my favorite childhood books, although my VERY favorite by Burnett was A Little Princess, I'd read that and cry buckets. Loved it.

But this one was very good.

So there Mr. Otter and I were, in Niles, California. Where, and more importantly WHAT, is Niles, California? those of you who do not live in the San Francisco Bay Area (and maybe even some of you who do) will say.

Niles, California (which is now a suburb of Fremont, in the East Bay) was a town where the Essenay Studio was located, and where silent films were made for four years, including Chaplin's The Tramp. You can find more about it at the Niles Film Museum web site. We had gone there to see some silent movies on a Saturday night, as we do every couple of months when time allows and there's something interesting playing.

And that night we saw Rebeccs of Sunnybrook Farm* with Mary Pickford, and enjoyed it VERY much, and found her to be charming and a fine actress. And on the way home, Mr. Otter said, I'd like to see her version of Little Lord Fauntleroy if we can get it. And lo and behold, it's available on Netflix.

This is not a complicated story, so it worked very well as a silent film. The actors were good, and it was enjoyable. But the best part?

Mary Pickford played BOTH the mother and the son. Now, she was a tiny little thing, just a skosh over five feet tall. And a good actress. But when I saw this in the credits, I expressed disbelief.

But yes, they pulled this off. And pretty well too.

Now, in the book (which they stuck to pretty closely) Cedric (the eponymous title character) is seven years old. Obviously, nobody is going to believe that this woman is a seven year old kid...so they made Cedric a little older, I'd say (from his actions and the ages of the kids around him) between 12 and 14. That worked pretty well, and the story didn't have to be rewritten for it. Secondly, they used what must have been pretty sophisticated techniques for the time to not only allow her to appear in scenes as both mother and son, but to show that their heights were different; as the son, Pickford came up to about the mother's collarbones. Not bad.

Sure, there were times it was obvious that the furniture was too big or too small on purpose, and once in a while she really overacted the boy thing...but overall, she did a fine job. Story aside, it's a treat to watch her do her stuff as both a kid standing up for himself and a refined, ladylike grown woman.

This is amazingly watchable and enjoyable, one of the better silent films I've seen. Well worth renting and seeing, I highly recommend it.

*I haven't been reviewing the silents I see in Niles. For one thing, it's hard to find info or posters of them; for another, they're not something any of you are generally going to be able to find a copy of to watch; and also, it's two or three movies, some of which are silly amusing shorts or ads. So I skip reviewing them. Sorry.