Mary Pickford was 25 years old when she played the 11 year old Gwen in this movie. Her short stature helped the illusion of youth.
This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1991.
One of many Silent Era motion pictures starring "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford which were remade as Shirley Temple vehicles. Known as the "Girl with the Curls," Pickford's box-office hits included The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), and A Little Princess (1917). In the mid-1930s, 20th Century Fox studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck re-purposed Pickford's films as vehicles for Temple and thus produced Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), Shirley auf Welle 303 (1938), Die kleine Prinzessin (1939), etc. Zanuck also instructed studio publicists to use Pickford's persona and nicknames as a model for Temple's public image as a Hollywood star. (Frank McGlynn Sr., who plays the plumber in this film, would also co-star with Temple in Little Miss Marker (1934) and Der kleinste Rebell (1935).)
Included among the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 400 movies nominated for the Top 100 Greatest American Movies.