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. . . FROM THE VAULT
Movie Re-Views
By Nelly Bly, Citizen-Dispatch
"LITTLE WOMEN"
Starring Katherine Hepburn
George Cukor - Director, 1933
Want to see Katharine Hepburn before The Lion in
Winter or On Golden Pond? Then Little Women is definitely the film for
you!
Little Women was adapted from Louisa May Alcott's
semi-autobiographical Civil War-era novel about the four
March sisters - Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy - and their
adventures, joys, loves, struggles and tears. Alcott
herself had three sisters who were the models for the
four fictitious March girls.
After Little Women,
there was no turning back for the suddenly successful
Ms. Alcott. She wrote Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight
Cousins, Rose in Bloom and dozens more.
Naturally,
every young girl who reads Little Women chooses a
character that she identifies with. In my case it was
Jo - the awkward, aspiring authoress.
The 1933 film
version is the only one which manages to stay fairly
true to the novel as well as to the brilliantly
humorous style of its author without maudlin
sentimentality. To be fair, the two remakes - one in
1949 with June Allyson and the latest with Winona
Ryder in 1994 - do have their own merits and are
enjoyable. It's just that the first one really
sparkles with the true spirit of Louisa May Alcott.
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Even though the picture was built around the late Katherine Hepburn,
she gets marvelous support from her sisters - Frances
Dee, Joan Bennett and Jean Parker and her best friend,
Laurie (Douglass Montgomery.) We see the four missing
their father who is off serving in the war, feeling
their poverty when they don't have any Christmas
presents, and engaging in hilarious amateur
theatricals at home for entertainment.
Ms. Hepburn is
at her best in these scenes as she stalks around
playing both the hero and the villain with a moustache
and tall boots! You will also enjoy Ms. Bennett's
self-centered, sardonic Amy and Douglass Montgomery's
slightly quirky offbeat romantic hero.
The love scenes are refreshingly honest without a
trace of the corniness found in many movies from the
period and if you don't shed more than a few tears
during the sad parts, then there is no hope for you!
Read the book; watch the movie.
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