Product Details

• Actors: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh
• Directors: Mervyn LeRoy
• Writers: Andrew Solt, Louisa May Alcott, Sally Benson, Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman
• Producers: Mervyn LeRoy
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
• Subtitles: Cantonese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Taiwanese Chinese
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 26, 2003
• Run Time: 121 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00009RDGF
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #60,355 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Little Women" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

MEG, JOSEPHINE, AMY AND BETH ARE THE LITTLE WOMEN WHO, TOGETHER WITH THEIR MOTHER, KEEP THE HOME FIRES BURNING WHILE THEIRPREACHER FATHER SERVES WITH THE UNION ARMY DURING THE CIVIL WAR.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Version Closest to Book, November 12, 2000

By 

R. Tiedemann "Sunnye" (Bellevue, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Women [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This version of Louisa May Alcott's classic book, "Little Women," starring June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Liz Taylor and Margaret O'Brien, was the first remake of the film (which originally starred Kathryn Hepburn) and the version that is truest to the book.

The Wynona Ryder film, the third and latest version, was seriously flawed, especially by the inclusion of "politically correct" and contemporary social views like the scene in which Ryder, playing Jo, expresses feminist sympathies to young men in a bar. I've read the book: there's nothing like that in it. In fact, the book is practically a morality play and in the earlier film versions the girls' struggle to improve their characters is portrayed, if somewhat lightly. These struggles, which are necessary to the accurate portrayal of each character and the time in which they lived, was totally deleted from the most recent version.

Both the Hepburn version and the Allyson version use quite a bit of Alcott's original text in the screenplay and characters in both films follow the book almost to the proverbial "T." The Ryder film, on the other hand, is a blatant and successful attempt to "modernize" Louisa Alcott, resulting in a totally inferior production.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Version Even Though They Made Beth Younger Than Amy!, March 17, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Little Women (DVD)

This is my favorite version of Little Women despite that fact that they made Beth younger than Amy when it was the other way around in the book. Amy was actually younger than Beth in the book but even with that it is still my favorite movie version and as much as I liked the 1933 Katharine Hepburn version I liked this 1949 version better and I found June Allyson to be a more convincing Jo.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 10 star winner....., December 13, 2005

By 

MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Little Women (DVD)

As someone named after Beth from Little Women and having sisters and my family roots on our Mothers side being in Maine, I was a lover of this film from the first time I ever saw it. Thankfully we now have it on DVD and can watch it any time we wish. It is very true to the book authored by a favorite author of mine, Louisa May Alcott.

As a woman I like the book and the movie because of the strength of the March women in an era when most women were expected to live a certain role. I also like how each of the daughters Jo, Beth, Amy and Meg along with the mother who is a widow are all spirited females and not at all wimpy or whiny. Remembering at all times that the story was/is set in Civil War times.

The movie never lags but blends smoothly from one scene to the next. The cinematography has held up well over the decades and the movie doesn't show its age visually. Each of the actors went on to be major successes with some being major stars when the movie was made. Its a movie that is timeless and is a favorite especially during the winter months in out home.