Little Miss Marker is a 1980

1980 in film

- Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....

 American comedy-drama

Comedy-drama

Comedy-drama is a genre of theatre, film and television programs which combines humorous and serious content.-Theatre:Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy...

 written and directed by Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein

Walter Bernstein is an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Early life:...

, based on a short story by Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon

Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...

. The film stars Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

, Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

, Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews

Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...

, Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart

George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...

 and new arrival Sara Stimson. It is a remake of the 1934 film of the same name

Little Miss Marker

Little Miss Marker is a 1934 American drama film directed by Alexander Hall. The screenplay was written by William R. Lipman, Sam Hellman, and Gladys Hellman after a short story by Damon Runyon. The film stars Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, and Dorothy Dell in a story about a little girl held...

 starring Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...

 and Adolphe Menjou

Adolphe Menjou

Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...

.

Plot

Sorrowful Jones (Matthau) is a gloomy, cantankerous bookie circa 1934, who is confronted by a gambler who cannot pay a $10 debt. He ultimately gives his 6-year-old daughter (Stimson) to Sorrowful's gangster-run gambling operation as a "marker" (collateral) for a bet. When the desperate gambler loses his bet and commits suicide, the gangsters are left with the "Kid" on their hands. Sorrowful's nervous assistant, Regret (Newhart), is concerned about the legalities of this, particularly the kidnapping statutes.

In the interim, a crime boss named Blackie (Curtis) coerces his longtime rival Sorrowful into financing a new gambling joint. The casino is opened in the stately home of Blackie's girlfriend, widowed Amanda Worthington (Andrews), who needs money to buy back her family property. Amanda is also counting on a racehorse of hers called Sir Galahad to ride to her rescue. While the Kid's personal needs inconvenience Sorrowful, a father-daughter relationship develops between them and they become inseparable. Amanda also takes a liking to the Kid, and reluctantly, the icy Sorrowful, who eventually comes to love her as well—much to Blackie's chagrin.

Cast

• Walter Matthau
  Walter Matthau
  Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
  
   as Sorrowful Jones
• Julie Andrews
  Julie Andrews
  Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
  
   as Amanda Worthington
• Tony Curtis
  Tony Curtis
  Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
  
   as Blackie
• Bob Newhart
  Bob Newhart
  George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
  
   as Regret
• Sara Stimson as the Kid
• Brian Dennehy
  Brian Dennehy
  Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
  
   as Herbie
• Kenneth McMillan
  Kenneth McMillan (actor)
  Kenneth McMillan was an American actor. McMillan was usually cast as gruff, hostile and unfriendly characters due to his rough image...
  
   as Brannigan
• Lee Grant
  Lee Grant
  Lee Grant is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Carp in the...
  
   as the Judge
• Andrew Rubin as Carter, the Kid's father

Award Nominations

In 1981, Sara Stimson was nominated for the female Young Artist Award

Young Artist Award

The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...

 in the category of Best Major Motion Picture - Family Entertainment. Stimson lost to Diane Lane

Diane Lane

Diane Lane is an American film actress.Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at the age of 13 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film A Little Romance, starring opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine...

 for her performance in Touched by Love

Touched by Love

Touched by Love is a 1980 drama film about a therapist who tries a novel approach with a girl afflicted with cerebral palsy; she has her charge become a pen pal with the girl's favorite singer, Elvis Presley...

. Little Miss Marker would become Stimson's only acting credit.