Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel film succeeded in re-popularizing Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst in their original roles. Sullivan also cast British veteran actress and Oscar winner, Wendy Hiller, in the role of the impossible Mrs. Harris, a character Sullivan specifically invented for the storyline, based on a composite of several matriarchs found in the series of novels. In Canada, the film became the highest rated drama to air on network television in Canadian broadcasting history. This Sequel became known as "Anne of Green Gables - The Sequel" when shown around the world and as "Anne of Avonlea - the Continuing Story of Anne of
Anne Shirley 1919 nor 1934 versions of "Anne of Green Gables" quite got her book right. Writing about the 1934 version of "Anne of Green Gables", Montgomery wrote in her diary that it was a "thousand times" better than the 1919 version, but still it: "was so entirely different from "my" vision of the scenes and the people that it did not seem like "my" book at all". The British scholar Faye Hammill wrote that 1934 film version stripped Anne of the "Canadian and feminist" aspects that the Anne of the books possessed, stating that there was something about Anne that Hollywood