The Secret Garden

Mary Lennox is a British girl raised in colonial India. When a cholera outbreak kills her parents, she is sent to England to live at Misselthwaite Manor, the isolated Yorkshire estate of her uncle Archibald Craven, a widower still burdened by his wife's death. Lonely and difficult at first, Mary discovers a locked garden that has been left untended for years, and with the help of a local boy, Dickon, and later her sickly cousin Colin, she begins to restore it and to bring a change of mood to the household.

The film adapts Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel about childhood and renewal. Margaret O'Brien leads the cast as Mary, with Dean Stockwell as Colin, Herbert Marshall as Archibald Craven, Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Medlock, Elsa Lanchester as the servant Martha and Brian Roper as Dickon. Fred M. Wilcox directed from a screenplay by Robert Ardrey, with Clarence Brown producing; it was Wilcox's third feature, following two Lassie films. The production came from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Loew's Incorporated and runs 92 minutes. Ratings place it well among viewers, with a 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb from around 3,600 votes and a 7.1 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample.