Plot

A young girl comes to an embittered town and confronts its attitude with her determination to see the best in life.

A little girl comes to a town that is embattled by feuds and intimidated by her aunt. By the time she must leave, she has transformed the community with her indominatable will to see the good side of even the worst situations and bring it out for the betterment of all.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>

It's the early twentieth century. Preteen Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills) has led a simple life as part of a church family, her parents former missionaries, with her father now a minister. Following the deaths of her parents, Pollyanna is sent to live with her wealthy maternal spinster aunt, Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman), in the town of Harrington, founded by the Harrington family. Pollyanna had never met her aunt before arriving in Harrington. Polly feels an obligation to the family name, and as such controls almost every aspect of what happens in town, which she is able to do as a Harrington company has dealings with almost every other company and person in town, she not afraid to wield that clout if anyone goes against her, especially Mayor Karl Warren (Donald Crisp). In that control, she will not allow her personal assistant/one of her maids, Nancy Furman (Nancy Olson), to be seen in public with her beau, George Dodds (James Drury), as Polly believes such behavior is disrespectful to her as Nancy's employer. Polly even controls the church as Reverend Paul Ford (Karl Malden) vets his sermons through her, they always, on Polly's directive, of a fire and brimstone nature. She also took in Pollyanna solely out of obligation rather than out of kindness or love. The town orphanage, the building for which Polly's father donated to the town, is in major disrepair. Polly would rather pay money out of her own pocket to make whatever band-aid repairs to the building than to embark on a community project to raise funds for a new orphanage solely as the building has the Harrington name. As opposed to Polly's stern outlook, Pollyanna, based on the teachings of her father, tries to find the good in everything and everyone. These someones include perhaps the two most disliked people in town, recluse Mr. Pendergast (Adolphe Menjou), the town's children believing he having other children who have trespassed on his property imprisoned in his basement, and disagreeable Mrs. Snow (Agnes Moorehead), who thinks more about dying than living. But the toughest nut for Pollyanna to crack may be her Aunt Polly, with her singular focus on control over the town to her standards and morals. Pollyanna may get some help in the matter of her aunt by Mayor Warren's nephew, Dr. Edmond Chilton (Richard Egan), a former resident who now lives in Baltimore, who is back in town for the first time in five years on a vacation, and who was once Polly's beau.—Huggo

Even after having lived the hardscrabble life of a missionary's daughter all her life and seen the loss of both parents, young Pollyanna Whittier (Hayley Mills) refuses to be depressed. Instead, she must be glad about anything she can think of, and it's paid off big time. Now, however, she must go to live with her cold, spinsterish Aunt Polly Harrington (Jane Wyman) in a town inhibited by embittered, unfriendly souls. Can she use her glad game to win over everyone and transform the town?