Wee Willie Winkie

Shirley Temple stars as Priscilla Williams, a young girl traveling with her mother, Joyce, to join her paternal grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith), a British army colonel, at the post he commands in northern India. Upon arrival, they witness the capture of Khoda Khan (Cesar Romero), leader of the rebel Indian faction. Priscilla plays at being a soldier and is even given a uniform and allowed to drill by the genial Sergeant MacDuff (Victor McLaglen), but her gruff grandfather disapproves and insists she remain apart from the troops. She eventually charms him, along with everyone else on the post, including Khoda Khan, whom she wins over by returning a talisman he's dropped. When the attractive Lieutenant Brandes (Michael Whalen) deserts his post to take Joyce to a dance, Khan escapes, and Brandes is arrested. As hostilities with the rebels mount, Priscilla and servant Mohammet Dihn (Willie Fung)--actually an Indian spy--take off for Khoda Khan's stronghold. Departing from the Kipling story, Ford places Temple in a military setting with a wonderfully expansive feeling not unlike that of his classic cavalry films.

There was nothing for McLaglen to do in that script, but the studio said, «Can you use him make him a sergeant or something?» I said, «Great!» He loved Shirley [Temple] and Shirley loved him, and pretty soon this grew into a big part. But according to the little bit that was<i> in the story, he had to be killed. Its bad drama, killing off a loveable character in the middle of a picture, but thats what the story called for there was no way to carry him on. One day it was pretty cloudy it had been raining but the clouds were so nice, and they had that occasional streak of light. Ordinarily, we would have knocked off for the day, but I had a great cameraman, Artie Miller, and I said, «Weve got to do something with the weather, with these clouds.» I said, «Weve got everybody here lets bury Victor!» And Artie said, «Thats a swell idea. Ill open up the exposure a bit well get a good effect.» So we put in the funeral.</i>
John Ford talking with Peter Bogdanovich, 1966