The Secret Garden (1949) is based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 children's classic, set in Yorkshire, about a lonely orphan and her invalid cousin whose spirits are revived when they revive the neglected garden of the title. There was a silent film version of the story, and several later screen and television versions, but this was the only one featuring a major child star in the leading role of Mary Lennox. Producer-director Clarence Brown had directed two of MGM's best family films, National Velvet (1944) and The Yearling (1946). He only produced The Secret Garden, turning the directing chores over to Fred M. Wilcox, who also had experience with family films - he had directed Lassie Come Home (1943), and two Lassie sequels. Together, they created a richly atmospheric production for The Secret Garden, from the moody, spooky Victorian mansion where the family lives, to the scenes in the lush restored garden, which are the only portions of the movie filmed in color - much in the same way as the Oz sequences in The Wizard of Oz (1939) were in color, and the Kansas scenes in black and white. Strangely, even though Oz had set the precedent, some critics appeared confused by the use of color in The Secret Garden. And they felt, as did the Variety critic, that "the allegorical and psychological implications that have been carried over from Frances Hodgson Burnett's book are clearly for the grown-up trade. Not only that, but a good bit of the production is designed to create eerie terror that may discourage parents from letting moppets see the pic." In this era when even the youngest "moppets" take Harry Potter in stride, however, such criticism seems quaint, and The Secret Garden seems ahead of its time.