There is some really impressive acting in this film. Margaret O'Brien (playing Mary Lennox) is excellent as a spoilt child initially unable to come to terms with the disappearance and death of her parents. Her tantrums look absolutlely believable. And Herbert Marshall (as her uncle Archibald Craven) was an inspired choice. Marshall was suffering from the loss of a leg in consequence of an injury sustained in WWI. The phantom pain never left him; his prosthesis tormented him, and he had taken to drinking. Here he plays a similarly tormented character, and he could not be more convincing. By contrast, Elsa Lanchester as Martha (the merry maid of Misselthwaite Manor) is overacting, as is Brian Roper, who plays Dickon a bit too much as the friendly yokel. The trick pioneered in The Wizard of Oz (1939) of showing certain scenes (here the restored garden) in colour whereas the rest of the film is in black and white had become a bit trite by the end of the 1940s. Still, all in all a very enjoyable picture.
Review of The Secret Garden
