Film: Junior Miss (1945). Young Actresses: Mona Freeman, 18, Peggy Ann Garner, 13, and Barbara Whiting, 13.

If you're a fan of young actresses - and you must be, if you're visiting this blog - then you've probably seen Margaret O'Brien's delightful, juvenile-Oscar-winning performance as Tootie in the 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis. That film ( Read more... )

Amelia Clarkson may have only made one movie so far, but she's making it count. Jane Eyre was released on March 11, and reviewers are already calling young Amelia a show stealer for her performance as young Jane - a role that's been played by Oscar-winner Anna Paquin (in the 1996 film), Chronicles of Narnia's Georgie Henley (in 2006), and one child ( Read more... )

As a young boy growing up in the Bronx, Martin Scorsese was moved by director Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront and East of Eden. Now in London directing Chloe Moretz in Hugo Cabret, Scorsese recently took time from filming to discuss Kazan for the new documentary, A Letter to Elia.

The one-hour documentary, which Scorsese co-wrote and directed with ( Read more... )

Film: Jane Eyre (1943). Young Actresses: Peggy Ann Garner, 11, Margaret O'Brien, 6, and Elizabeth Taylor, 11.

I hated Jane Eyre when I read the book in high school. But it's impossible to hate this movie, which has three great performances from three great young actresses: Peggy as young Jane, Elizabeth as young Jane's only friend Helen (an ( Read more... )

In the novel, Jane Eyre is described as small and extremely plain. She is ten when the novel begins, and for most her childhood, she is abused, unloved, and underfed, first by her aunt and cousins, then by the cruel clergymen who run her school. At least fifteen film versions of the novel exist, but in this post, we'll focus on just three -- the ( Read more... )