10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Nice Christmas Story, March 7, 2005
This review is from: The Little Match Girl (1987) (VHS Tape)
Keshia-Knight Pulliam plays Molly, an angel sent to earth as a little match girl: her mission, to save the fragmented Dutton family. The father and his oldest son haven't spoken since the son didn't join dad's business and then married "beneath him" in the person of a loving Irish servant girl. The second son is a hard-drinking wastrel and the girl in the family cares only for her social position. You have to take a big leap of disbelief, knowing history, to think a rich 1920s white family would take in a scruffy black orphan, but after that the story isn't bad. The 1920s "look" is perfect, the story features Irish servants who aren't your typical "sure and begorrah" stereotypes, William Daniels' portrayal of family patriarch Heywood Dutton is quite good and so is William Youmans as wastrel son Neville, who brings Molly home. Screenplay is by Maryedith Burrell, who plays Rita. Also of note in the cast, John Rhys Davies as the corrupt chief of police, who plays the character with such a melodramatic flair you expect him to twirl his moustache and laugh evilly.
Note to other reviewers of this movie elsewhere: this has NOTHING to do with the Hans Christian Andersen story except that the main character is a little girl who sells matches. Those who say it is "just like the story" have not read it!
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