Someone recently posted about Hollywood adaptations of young adult novels; how the character is inevitably aged-up a few years, and then played by someone older still.

But what about a tale involving the heroic intervention of an adolescent of "marryable" age who is replaced in the film by a 6 year old? And replaced so successfully that after several remakes, nobody thinks of the girl in the story as a teen young woman anymore?

I recently caught the '40s film of The Canterville Ghost with Charles Laughton as the ghost and Margaret O'Brien as "Lady Jessica," the mistress of a haunted estate which is hosting a platoon of Yanks during WWII.

Since I knew that Oscar Wilde wrote it much earlier, I was curious enough to look up the original story to see what was changed in the update. And the answer is, most everything. The film's story hinges on the act of cowardice which cursed the Cantervilles. And the necessity of a redeeming act of bravery to free the ghost. All of that was added in the screenplay and is absent in the original story.

In Wilde's version, the manor is bought by an American family which includes a 15 year old daughter. She is the one who finds out about the curse and what it will take to free the ghost. Wilde's version ends with her marrying a young nobleman.

I think I prefer the version with a six year old in it.

And there's even an awesome dance number with Lady Jessica being jitterbugged by a GI.

Now that we've established the precedent, we need to think of other classic tales which need to be updated and de-aged. :)

Dante