My sister and I just finished watching the movie again. It is one of our favorites.Not only do I give it a #10 rating - I also give a rating to infinity.I grew up on the 'edge' of earlier, more sane days of our country and world - at least the first few years were more sane, even though it was after WWII.I saw enough of the kind of family life that Cedric had with his Mom, and the love and kindness shown, to gratefully remember it. My Mom continued to show me and my siblings, and others, the same kind of love and caring that Ced's mother showed him and others, with such love, kindness, and gentleness, this present world knows little, if anything, about - and today's world is really missing a lot.All generations has it's good and bad sides, and good and bad people. The kind of morals and love which this movie showed, shows what the majority of society believed and lived, which made life more sane, not perfectly so, but more so. What today's world is missing out on.

This altogether lovely, exquisite period piece represents Hollywood filming at its height, no doubt. But what almost destroys its timelessness is the terribly bad condition of the film, reportedly taken from a television showing some years ago, complete with some of the worst damage I have ever seen in an old Hollywood classic. The memory of David O. Selznick deserves better than this shoddy monument to his great vision of the Burnett book. It is simply unforgivable that various "discount" houses continue to offer this and so many other dreadful copies of great films to a gullible and unsuspecting public. The complete restoration of this film is LONG overdue. And the various slashing of scenery, dialogue, for whatever greedy reason, is appalling, just appalling. After having seen so very many films on VHS and now DVD over many years, I submit that this is the most heartbreaking kind of butchery of a great, noble effort of any of the great directors and producers in the long history of American filming. Please, won't someone - the AFI, TCM, restoration companies, ANYONE - step up and lovingly bring this lovingly created film back into the sunshine of clarity, wholeness and beauty???!!! I have little faith in our rapidly decaying culture as we enter the new century, especially when such travesties occur. Once again, there is absolutely NO valid, logical excuse for this. Sorry for popping off so much, but I have watched it all too many times before. To use an offensive word appropriate for my feelings - it's bullshit...

1880 , Brooklyn , New York , a poor and fatherless boy (Freddie Bartholomew) is living with his mum (Dolores Costello). A sender (Henry Stephenson) communicate them which he turns out to be the only state heir to the earl of Dorincourt (Sir C. Aubrey Smith) . He then leaves his friends (Mickey Rooney and Guy Kibbee) and set out for England as the long-lost heir to his grandpa and a British dukedom . But the grandfather is a grumpy and crusty nobleman and the problems are always cropping up . Then , little Lord Fauntleroy must try to overcome the cold and grouchy lord .Classic and the best version based on known novel by Frances Burnett with elitist and sincere interpretations from Bartholomew , Aubrey Smith , Rooney , enough to make the creaky ancient tale actually works . Freddie Bartholomew had starred ¨Anna Karenina¨ and ¨David Copperfield¨ but his greatest success resulted out to be this film . Dolores Costello , married to John Barrymore , plays the lovable mummy in an affected and forced acting . Sir C. Aubrey Smith is magnificent as the bitter-grumbler and unsentimental count . Una O'Connor , as always , plays a maid with her ordinary gestures and grimaces . For comic relief , as usual , appears Mickey Rooney giving a hilarious and sympathetic acting . This was originally made in black and white with an excellent cinematography by Charles Rosher but there is also available in computer-colorized version and the musical score was composed by the classical musician Max Steiner . Director John Cromwell worked a lot with the great and powerful producer David O. Selznick and seems largely to have been content to follow his instructions , though he was always loath to allow too much sentimentality as happens on the sometimes heavily relationship between mother-son and grandfather-grandson . Due to the demise of O.Selznick , this movie is now in the public domain . The picture was remade for television in 1980 by Jack Gold with Alec Guinness and Rick Schroder and in 1976 by Paul Annett and 1995 with George Baker . The motion picture was immensely successful in America and around the world , it is actually an authentic and charming classic movie .

This is a good adaptation of the story of "Little Lord Fauntleroy", with a very good cast that brings the characters to life in a believable and entertaining fashion. Besides telling the enjoyably old-fashioned family story, the movie adds some nice scenes that simply emphasize the relationships among the characters.This is one of Freddie Bartholomew's best roles, and he seems pretty natural in the part of Fauntleroy. The adult cast features some very good performances. Dolores Costello is a good choice as the gentle 'Dearest', Henry Stephenson is well-cast as the faithful Haversham, and C. Aubrey Smith seems the very embodiment of a bad-tempered Earl.But perhaps the best performances come from Guy Kibbee and a young Mickey Rooney, as Cedric's American friends. Their camaraderie in their scenes with Bartholomew works particularly well, and they figure in some of the movie's best moments.The story is just the familiar old tale, with young Cedric leaving his humble but cozy existence in Brooklyn to go to England, where he must contend with his grandfather's coldness towards his mother and with other challenges. But it's the kind of story that's easy to watch over again when it is told the right way.