| The Secret Garden | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Fred M. Wilcox |
| Produced by | Clarence Brown |
| Written by | Frances Hodgson Burnett (novel) Robert Ardrey |
| Starring | Margaret O'Brien Herbert Marshall Dean Stockwell |
| Music by | Bronislau Kaper (composer) Andre Previn (direction/supervision) |
| Cinematography | Ray June |
| Editing by | Robert J. Kern |
| Studio | Loews Inc. |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | April 30, 1949 |
| Running time | 92 minutes |
| Language | English |
The Secret Garden is a 1949 US drama film.[1][2] It is the second screen adaptation of the classic 1909 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett (the first adaption was a silent version filmed in 1919). The screenplay by Robert Ardrey was directed by Fred M. Wilcox. It centers on a young orphan who is thrust into the dark and mysterious lives of her widowed uncle and his crippled son when she comes to live with them in their isolated country house in Yorkshire, England.
The MGM release was filmed primarily in black-and-white, with the sequences set in the restored garden of the title filmed in Technicolor.
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When tempestuous Mary Lennox (Margaret O'Brien), born in India to wealthy parents, is orphaned by a cholera epidemic, she is sent to live with her reclusive and embittered Uncle Archibald Craven (Herbert Marshall) and her ill-behaved, bedridden cousin Colin (Dean Stockwell) at their desolate and decaying estate known as Misselthwaite Manor. Dickon (Brian Roper), the brother of one of the house maids, tells her of a garden secreted behind a hidden door in a vine-covered wall. When a raven unearths the key, the two enter and discover the garden is overgrown from neglect since Craven's wife died there in an accident. They decide to keep their discovery a secret, and begin to restore it to its original grandeur. Under the influence of the Secret Garden, Mary becomes less self-absorbed, Colin's health steadily improves, and Archibald's curmudgeonly personality fades away.
This was Margaret O'Brien's final film for M-G-M.
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