‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’

During these distressing times we live in today filled with angst, loathing, political turmoil, rampant immorality and media propaganda, I thought I would depart from my regular political essays and direct my energies to the cinema and one of my favorite movie classics, “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

According to the entry in Wikipedia, “Little Lord Fauntleroy is a 1936 drama film based on the 1886 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The film stars Freddie Bartholomew, Dolores Costello, and C. Aubrey Smith.” Although there was a 1921 film version of the novel, my favorite version is based on the screenplay by Hugh Walpole. “Young Cedric ‘Ceddie’ Errol (Freddie Bartholomew) and his widowed mother, whom he calls ‘Dearest’ (Dolores Costello), live frugally in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric’s prejudiced English grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt (C. Aubrey Smith), had long ago disowned his son for marrying an American.”

However, the sands of time were relentlessly falling though the hour glass as the earl is confronted with his imminent mortality; he is without a male heir to take over his vast estate. As this galling realization sets in, he grudgingly accepts the fact that though he has the wealth of kings, he knows that nobody loves him. They only fear him. This state of affairs has finally led to the Earl sending his faithful and wise lawyer-emissary, Havisham (Henry Stephenson), to bring Ceddie to England to live with him where before he dies the lad can be schooled in all the traditions and customs befitting a future earl. As the earl’s sons are all dead, Ceddie is the heir to the title. Mrs. Errol accompanies her son to England, however, because of the earl’s irrational but enduring prejudice against Americans, she is not allowed to live at Dorincourt Castle, but at a nearby estate that the earl owns. To protect her son and maintain Cedric’s psychological constancy, she does not tell him of his grandfather’s bigotry. The earl’s lawyer is impressed with the young widow’s wisdom. However, the earl expresses skepticism when Mr. Havisham informs him that Cedric’s mother will not accept an allowance from him and propelled by years of guilt and in an arrogant rage, forces the mother to take the money through Havisham.

My favorite scene in the movie occurs near the beginning when mother and son travel to England and Little Lord Faunterlroy’s first meeting with the earl. Ceddie, whose manner, character, intellect and psychology is truly transcendent beyond his young years, is oblivious to all of the inter-family political intrigue, and soon wins the hearts of the earl’s entire housekeeping staff and his stern, austere grandfather. Even the earl’s large, protective guard dog, who barks at most people, immediately falls under the spell of this little boy’s transcendent goodness and escorts him to the earl.

Later, the earl hosts a grand party to proudly introduce his grandson to British society, notably his sister, Lady Constantia Lorridaile (Constance Collier), who would later proclaim regarding the earl: “The boy is the first human being he ever loved.” The Lady Constantia character is the wise, matronly great-aunt. She was the only one in the earl’s vast circle of friends, relatives or colleagues in Parliament who had the courage to stand up against the earl. The tenor of her words were sublime. The Shakespearean unspoken dialogue she possessed with her eyes, with a wave of her feathered fan, would put the earl in his proper place every time he tried to act up and intimidate his invited guests with unkind words, which caused the earl to stomp away in frustration.

Click here to read the article at World Net

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