The first motion picture based on Louisa May Alcott's gently humorous 1869 classic of four sisters who learn moral lessons and grow from children to adults in Civil War-era Massachusetts, this film chronicles the lives of the teenage March sisters
Jo (Katharine Hepburn), Meg (Frances Dee), Amy (Joan Bennett), and Beth (Jean Parker), who, in the company of their mother, try to maintain positive attitudes in the face of hardship. Hepburn infuses her role with a raw, awkward energy, revealing a vividness and buoyancy beneath her Victorian reserve. The movie, like the novel, is unapologetically sentimental, playing skillfully at the heart strings; based on an Oscar-winning adaptation by Victor Heerman and Sarah Mason and able direction by George Cukor, it is careful to avoid clichés, developing into an authentically moving story.
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Much rested on the slender shoulders of Little Women. Hollywood wanted to see if an adapted literary classic could strike box-office gold. Jo March and her sisters nimbly shouldered the load.
Directed by George Cukor, this charming 1933 version of Louisa May Alcott's novel won overwhelming support (plus an Oscar for Best Adaptation Screenplay). It also looks and sounds its best in years via this new digital transfer from restored fine-grain film elements and optical audio tracks. All gawky tomboyishness and spunk, Katherine Hepburn is Jo, the center of the Civil War-era tale of heart and hearth (revisited in 1949 and 1994 versions). "Released during the depths of the Depression, [it] buoyed Americans' spirits. It still does" (The Movie Guide).
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