Customer Reviews

Little Women (1933)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Based upon Louisa May Alcott's beloved book of the same name, this black and white film lovingly captures its charm. It is also a pretty faithful adaptation of Ms. Alcott's classic. Though there may be a half dozen adaptations, of the three that I have seen this one is, undoubtedly, the best. Its writing deservedly won the Academy Award in 1933 for Best Screenplay Adaptation. It is unfortunate, however, that although the film was also nominated for the Best Picture Award, it lost to "Cavalcade", a largely forgotten, lesser film.

Deftly directed by George Cukor, the film tells the story of the March family, whose patriarch has gone off to fight in the Union Army during the Civil War. Mrs. March is left to raise her four daughters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, in nineteenth century New England. The film focuses on the personal interactions family members have with each other, as well as with their friends and neighbors, in order to create a portrait of an idealized, loving family held together during trying times. It is also a very poignant coming of age film.

The film primarily revolves around the March sisters, with the focus on independent and headstrong Jo, an aspiring writer, as well as a tomboy and second oldest of the four sisters. In addition to the March family, a wealthy neighbor's nephew, Laurie, plays a prominent role in the life of the March family, with a lesser one played by the family's wealthy Aunt March.

This film is beautifully cast, with a luminous Katherine Hepburn perfect in the lead role. As Jo March, Ms. Hepburn captures the essence of this beloved character. Feisty, independent, loving, and intelligent, her characterization of Jo is inspired, though Ms. Hepburn may not have strayed too far from her own persona.

Spring Byington is wonderful as mother to the March daughters, while Frances Dee, Jean Parker, and Joan Bennett are uniformly excellent in the respective roles of Meg, Beth, and Amy, the sisters whom Jo so dearly loves. Douglass Montgomery is superb as Laurie, Jo's best friend, though his painted lips and shadowed eyelids are a bit anachronistic and a style holdover from the silent screen era.

Paul Lukas is endearing as the Professor, Jo's mature love interest. Henry Stephensen is effective as the generous, elderly neighbor, Mr. James Lawrence, uncle to Laurie. Veteran character actress, Edna Mae Oliver, rounds out this superlative cast as cantankerous Aunt March and shamelessly steals every scene in which she appears.

This is a wonderful vintage film that would be a welcome addition to the personal collection of those who love beautifully made, classic films. Bravo!

This 1933 version of Louisa May Alcott's Civil-War era classic remains the best film version of "Little Women." After all, it offers Katharine Hepburn as Jo March, whereas later versions have offered June Allyson, Meredith Baxter Birney (for TV), and Winona Ryder in her place (Although Claire Dane's deathbed scene in the 1994 version is magnificent). But the entire cast of this film is superb from top to bottom: Joan Bennett as Amy, Jean Park as Beth, Frances Dee as Meg, and Spring Byington as Marmee, with Paul Lukas as Professor Bhaer, Douglass Montgomery as Laurie, and Edna May Oliver threatening to steal every scene she is in as Aunt March.

Hepburn won the Cannes International Film Festival award as Best Actress of 1934, and it seems reasonable to suggest that her performance in "Little Women" helped Hepburn win her first Academy Award for "Morning Glory," which had come out the previous year (much as Diane Keaton was helped by having done "Saving Mr. Goodbar" the same year as "Annie Hall" when she won her Oscar). "Little Women" was nominated for Best Picture that year, because the team behind the camera of this RKO film was equally as strong. The film was produced by David O'Selznick and director George Cukor was nominated for an Oscar as well, although surprisingly none of the actors received nominations. The film's one award went to Y. Mason and Victor Heerman, who most deservedly won for Best Screenplay Adaptation.

This is arguably Hepburn's best performance in her first dozen films, although some dismiss it as being too close to home for the actress. It would be decades before critics decided that when Katharine Hepburn played herself no one could equal her, and "Little Women" certainly foreshadows her later successes. It would be nice if at least the sound on this 67 year old film could be restored, but if you can get past it being in black and white this is the "Little Women" to show your children.

Note: Interesting that this video tape is not currently available by itself, but it is as part of a three tape set of Hepburn films. Hmmmm.

Katharine Hepburn stars as the tomboy Jo March in the first screen version of Louisa Allcot's classic LITTLE WOMEN.

Under George Cukor's inspired direction, Hepburn gives one of her best and most celebrated performances. As the quick-witted, sharp-tongued and accident-prone Jo, Hepburn is wonderful.

She later remarked that Jo was a role she always dreamt of playing. She believed that she and Jo were not that different - both were the tomboy and both were highly dramatic.

The supporting cast is first-rate. Spring Byington, Joan Bennett and Paul Lukas are put to good use here, as is the wonderful Frances Dee.

Later re-made with June Allyson, and more recently with Winona Ryder, LITTLE WOMEN is a timeless story of sisterly love and utter devotion.

Yes, once you have seen this 1933 version of "Little Women", you only ever see Katharine Hepburn in your mind's eye as you re-read the novel. I've seen this one, of course, as well as June Allyson's, Susan Dey's, and Winona Ryder's, and a PBS one years ago which featured an extremely pouty gal with a protruding lower lip as Jo. Interestingly enough, though, one evening I rented both Kate's and June's and played them back to back to determine how each measured up against the other. While Kate brings a quality of haplessness to the role that June doesn't, I found to my surprise that OVERALL I preferred the June Allyson movie. Why? Better film quality, color as opposed to black and white (shouldn't make a difference, but it was attractive), and a cast better known to me from other pictures than Kate's; the 15 years between the pictures makes a great difference for more modern audiences in that respect--imagine, Elizabeth Taylor as Amy!. For more on the June Allyson version, see my full review treatment there. Back to Kate for now. As I mentioned, Kate's haplessness is right out of the book, one of the overriding characteristics of Jo March. Like many of Selznick's earlier pictures (see "David Copperfield"), there is an antique quality to the movie and some of the acting is a wee bit too dated and histrionic. Depending on whom you watch the movie with, that may matter. The first half of the movie, prior to Jo's moving to NY, is the better part. I have always loved the scene where she is being chased over the hills and fences by Laurie with Max Steiner's score cheerily bouncing away, only to come upon her sister Meg trying to be so dignified with her beau Mr. Brooke--Jo's realization that their childhood days are coming to an end with Meg's changing interests and reproof of Jo's tomboy antics. Edna May Oliver gets my vote for the best Aunt March yet--I suppose she really only ever plays one part in every movie you see her in, but that's what can be so effective about character actors and typecasting. Incidentally, I wish ALL versions would drop the playacting sequences--I've always been bored out of my mind by those scenes, even though I realize Alcott devoted a lot of time to them in the book. This "Little Women" is a classic and nobody should reach the age of 30 without having seen it at least once!

Katherine Hepburn brings the Little Women heroine Jo March alive in a portrayal that truly does justice to the Jo that Louisa May Alcott wrote. Courageous and creative, but socially awkward, Jo charms us with her tomboy attempts to deal with adolescence during the difficulties of the Civil War. Though a film is of necessity a rather shortened version of a book, the essential feel of the book is intact in this film version.

I love books and I love movies that are adapted from books so last week I watched the 1933 black and white version of Little Women for the first time and it is a very good movie though they left out some very good parts from the book but I still enjoyed watching this and I think Katharine Hepburn was a wonderful Jo but the rest of the cast was good too, especially Joan Bennett as Amy and Spring Byington as Marmee and I also liked Paul Lukas as Professor Bhaer and think he was alot like the character was described in the book and being a fan of black and white movies I very highly recommend this movie and this DVD and I think any fan of Louisa May Alcott's wonderful book should enjoy this delightful movie! Update: April 17, 2005, I have read complaints that the actors in this movie are too old to be playing young Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy and Laurie but it's such a good movie and if you get past the age thing you will see that the acting is very good and you forget about the ages of the actors. I have also just recently watched the 1949 movie and I have seen written the same age complaints made about some of the actors from the 1949 and 1994 versions too and to me the ages of the actors is a minor thing and it's not as though they were too extremely old to play the characters. I liked the 1994 version but in my opinion this 1933 version and the 1949 version are a lot better, a lot more charming and are more faithful to the book!

The simple classic tale, warm and human (and innocent) of how four girls grew up with their good times and their sad times. LITTLE WOMEN fully captures the joy and feeling of the classic 1868 classic by Louisa May Alcott. Katharine's playing of Jo is vibrant and she captures Jo's tomboy qualities yet also delicately projects the beauty and intellect of Jo as a woman and budding writer. Paul Lukas made the German professor both manly and tenderly lovable. Spring Byington, as Marmee, is the only one who seems to have stepped out of an old-fashioned Sunday School book - she's unmistakably smug, and proud of it. Highly episodic, the movie focuses on the characters without slavishly following a plot. The very young Joan Bennett is terrific as Amy, who's ever scheming for the "good life" and Douglass Montgomery has the boundless energy needed in his playing of Laurie. A must-see for the fans of Alcott and Hepburn while others will find it enjoyable as a family film.

Without comparing this version of Little Women to the 1994 remake I grew up with, I can heartily endorse it as fun-loving, wholesome family entertainment that does justice to a story we hold dear. I suppose one has to develope a taste for these older movies, however . . . and I'm not thinking about the black and white. There are so many parts where it's hard to keep up with the diolog, probably because I'm used to newer movies where they always zoom in on who ever is speaking. Katherine Hepburn did good acting, there is no doubt . . . but looked too old for a teenage role, and she oddly resembled Lucy ("I Love Lucy"), giving me a weird feeling about her through the first half of the movie. The potrayel of her sister/brother relationship with Laurie was brought out better in this movie than in any other, in my opinion. In the 1949 one Laurie seemed to be sweet on her to begin with, and that wasn't the way it was in the book. In the 1994 one with Christian Bale and Winona Ryder, their relationship was playful, but in the book they also "quarreled" a lot, and the 1994 version didn't bring that out enough to explain Jo's rejection of his suit. The Laurie in this 1933 version, however, looked way younger than Jo, and a bit frail. And, too, his facial expressions were sometimes nerdy, and sometimes cute, making me edgy. The Beth they had was PERFECT, as was the Amy, but Meg's character was a bit flat, as she wasn't given many lines, and I only remember one scene which Mr. March was in. John Brook was also a side character. Mr. Lawrence and Aunt March were given big parts, though, and were highly entertaining. The Marmee they had gave a sincere effort, you could tell, and truly seemed the warm, caring mother of four girls from Alcott's novel. I would reckon that most of her acting career was on the stage, however, because it shows in her overworked gestures, facial expressions, and intonation. (Stage actors had to be overly dramatic in a time before the magic of fancy camera work.) Jo's Proffessor from the 1994 movie is and will remain my die-hard favorite. The new version did the best with Jo and the Proffessor's romance. My favorite thing about this movie was the quiet, unforced reverence it radiates. Marmee and her girls are shown praying at different times and even sing "Abide With Me" as Beth plays the piano, and the March girls are rightly concerned about fashioning their characters as best they can. Very wholesome stuff. This is one good movie, and I'd reccomend it to anyone.

This 1933 Hollywood adaptation of Little Women is lavishly produced and a true classic. The story itself is a family drama, centering on the lives of the March sisters - Meg [Frances Dee], Jo [Katharine Hepburn], Beth [Jean Parker], and Amy [Joan Bennett] who live with their mother, Marmie in a New England town during the time of the Civil War, whilst their father is away fighting.

Of all the movie adaptations, this 1933 version is the most faithful to the novel and though not my personal favorite [I love the 1949 version with June Allyson the best], I still love it for Katharine Hepburn's performance as the feisty, independent-minded Jo March who harbors dreams of becoming a published author. The actresses who play the sisters are all quite good, but somehow pale in comparison to the latter versions [I liked Elizabeth Taylor's performance as Amy in the 1949 version, and Claire Danes' performance as Beth in the 1994 adaptation.

The actor who portrayed Laurie was the weakest of all the adaptations. Apart from the lack of good looks [seeming almost girlish in some scenes], he also lacks stature and credibility in his portrayal of Laurie. Other than that, the production details are convincing and well-done, and I also like this version for staying as true as it could to the novel by Louisa May Alcott. This version is worth owning for Little Women fans and fans of classic Hollywood dramas.

Little Women (1933), directed by George Cukor story of March family, four beautiful loving sisters and their Marmee, is an early adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's beloved 1860s classic and certainly one of the best. This is the movie that I believe should be universally loved and praised because it is a cinematic triumph. Everything is perfect in it. The clothes, the hairdos, the sets, cinematography, the musical score by Max Steiner and the brilliant script that brings to life the timeless story -together they take you effortlessly to the Marches' world where you feel their true love and caring for one another, and follow their dreams, theirs hopes, and their heartbreaks. This is the film that made me jealous of the girls who have sisters by showing what treasure the sisters' love is. This is the movie which I want to watch with my Mom during the Mother's day and to tell her how much she means to me. This is the movie with very young, very talented, strong willed, independent, and excellent Katharine Hepburn, perfect as Jo March, the character that Alcott could've written with her in mind. Yes, the film is sentimental, so what? Made 75 years ago, it is young, beautiful, heartwarming, and radiates love, kindness, and goodness.