I think it's hard to judge the movies when you're such a fan of the book, lol!

None of the movie versions I've seen are very close to the book: The WB version is gorgeous to look at, but the end is obviously so very off, and the Shirley Temple version: LOL. I'm pretty sure these are the only ones I've seen (and I own them both, and watch them often).

I will admit I have never been able to finish the book, I didn't read it when I was little, and only tried more recently after loving the WB movie. It's very hard for me to read a book where I KNOW the story, and I know the story VERY well.

The Secret Garden is probably my absolute favorite story of all time. That one has also not gotten a very acurate/good movie. I think it would be very hard to translate it to screen right, the second half of the book pretty much changes to being all about Colin. Obviously any Secret Garden movie is going to be aimed at girls, and I think that would just be very difficult to do right. The WB movie is one of my absolute favorite movies.

The only film version of The Secret Garden that's really faithful to the book, is the BBC version (funny, you mentioned the only faithful ALP was a British one, as well), but I don't like the casting or atmosphere of that one, I'd prefer to watch a story that's not the same/as good as the book, and get a movie that I really enjoy watching.

I'm sure you know you'd have to rewig a doll, I think the only Caucasian looking black haired doll is the new one, AGT25. There used to be an AGT with dark brown hair and green eyes, who's probably work just fine, the dark hair is really pretty dark. Personally, I think these neon green eyes would look crazy with black hair! I'd get AGT21 and rewigg her, then she'd still look like Sara, but she wouldn't be "scary" looking.

I like the idea of making a doll that's in a time period that AG already has clothes of! I long to make an Anastasia Romanov doll, and am quite fortunate that she would also be about the same time period, and a few of Sam's outfits would be great. I'd still need to figure out how to sew really well, to make 2-3 outfits for her. But it is nice that AG has a nice collection of outfits that are very close already.