Secret Garden - Hallmark Hall of Fame [DVD] [1987] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

I know I should review the actual DVD from Amazon, but I can only review the movie (and I was surprised not to have seen one with the product): it's definitely worth purchasing this DVD to see this version of The Secret Garden. The scenery is fantastic and the cast was well-chosen (including Derek Jacobi as the disinterested and ailing father and a very very young Colin Firth as an adult Collin) even though Gennie James as Mary could have had more coaching on her English accent. All in all, this film adaptation of the children's classic is a more accurate portrayal of the book's essence.

Pleasant enough version of the classic story of a little girl who brings life back to a moribund father and son, expressed symbolically in the form of the neglected garden. 'Jane Eyre' provided author Burnett with the template for her story, with Colin taking the place of the mad wife locked in the attic and so on.There are two main changes: A clumsy bit of exposition tries to account for why Mary is staying with a family friend rather than a relative (her uncle in the original story), so that Mary and Colin can marry at the end of the film in a completely unnecessary attempt at infusing the story with an adult romance, and Mary is evidently from Texas, judging from her accent, a detail I don't recall from the book.