Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 18-July-04
Spoiler Rating: High
 

Little Women (1933, 1949, and 1994)

Some stories never go out of style, like epic battles between good and evil, dramas about the little guy defying an oppressor, and romances about love conquering all. And then there's the quieter, more homely sort of story which, because it speaks to experience instead of imagination, also endures in the hearts and minds of generations. Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is such a story, a timeless tale about the journey from youth to adulthood and the universal hunger for home. The March sisters begin as boisterous teenagers weathering the Civil War under the eye of their loving mother and end as women with homes and loves of their own, the fruits of their individual and collective childhood. As the liveliest, boldest, and most confused of the lot (and Alcott's literary alter ego), Jo March perceives the pains and rewards of growing up most keenly and persists in being a marvelously sympathetic heroine.

In the past 70 years, Hollywood has put this story before the public no less than three times (not counting TV versions), each one reflective of the tastes and values of its audience. It's a testimony to the appeal of Alcott's work that I watched them on consecutive nights and still didn't tire of the characters or the lessons they offer.

Little Women (1933)

George Cukor's black-and-white, Depression-era classic, starring Katharine Hepburn as Jo, sets the standard against which all movie versions of "Little Women" must be judged. Blessed with such a strong leading lady, the film puts Jo front and center and directs all other characters to the fulfillment of her mature understanding. Hepburn and Douglass Montgomery, who plays her best friend Laurie, were both in their mid-twenties at the time, but they perfectly capture the joyous freedom of youth, to explore, to be honest, and to dream big. When they chase each other through the woods in playful companionship, you grasp the full meaning of the unencumbered life which Jo desperately wants to maintain.

Content to be surrounded by family and friends, Jo laments any change in her happy household (despite the Marchs' financial setbacks and excepting the return of her father from the South). However, she cannot prevent her sisters from advancing to their fates: the eldest girl Meg (Francis Dee) succumbs to a romantic attachment, timid soul Beth (Jean Parker) sacrifices herself to a giving nature, and pert little Amy (Joan Bennett, wonderfully Victorian) assumes Jo's place by the side of their rich Aunt March and, eventually, of Laurie himself. Feeling alone, Jo heads to New York with the blessing of her beloved mother Marmee (Spring Byington), where she hopes to meet adventures that will inspire her to write great works of fiction. There, she learns that real life sometimes yields the best stories, like her meeting with Professor Bhaer (Paul Lukas), a German man of singular adorability who mixes the innocence of childhood with the wisdom of adulthood (and points Jo in the same direction).

The original "Little Women" has a comforting simplicity and the best and most natural Jo, and therefore makes a strong case for being the finest film version to date. In its focus on one little woman more than the rest, it conveys the message that losing childhood is painful, but has its own rewards.

Little Women (1949)

Having missed Van Sant's "Psycho," I can safely say that the 1949 "Little Women" is the most extreme example of a remake I know. The movie takes almost every line and scene directly from its predecessor (even where that worthy example deviated from the book, as when Amy gets punished for drawing "didos" at school); and with nothing new to offer except a glaring Technicolor fakery, it doesn't come close to its mark.

Although the story remains affecting, everything in this film (but one) tries too hard to be wonderful. Even if the viewer can get past the painted backdrops and showy costumes, the flawless make-up and eyebrows of the entire cast must pull him up short and diminish the effect of the modest Concord, MA, setting. The few instances where the script differs from the original aim to make somebody more dramatic or funny or grand, e.g., the invention that Laurie ran away from school to join the war, the switch in ages between Beth and Amy, and the transformation of lesser players like Aunt March into caricatures.

Then, too, June Allyson isn't right as the star. At 32, she is the would-be Jo most egregiously distant from her character's age, and she comes across more as an eccentric than a tomboy. (You can already envision her as a crusty old dame when her family is gone, living in an empty mansion with dozens of cats and scaring the local boys.) Janet Leigh and Margaret O'Brien are agreeable enough as Meg and Beth, respectively, but Peter Lawford looks too old and serious to capture Laurie's restless, fun-loving nature. However, no one grates half so much as Rossano Brazzi as Professor Bhaer, who shoots for Italian-hunk-cum-sensitive-German-egghead and ends up merely unbelievable and annoying.

Yet, for all its misguided emulation of the first film, the postwar "Little Women" does possess points of interest related to the pretty, petulant sister Amy. Elizabeth Taylor nearly steals the show with her effortless airs and flounces (not to mention her entirely understandable love of popovers), and she highlights the fact that Amy is the trickiest character in the story. Since she has less time to ripen than the others, it's easy to dismiss her as a consolation prize for Laurie or a device to keep Jo's loved ones together. Taylor's Amy, however, doesn't seem to mature at all, thus shedding an interesting (if unintended) light on the man that Laurie has become and, consequently, the choices that Jo has made.

Little Women (1994)

A lot can happen in forty-five years, and when the third rendition of "Little Women" hit the big screens it clearly sought to establish itself on its own terms. Devoting more time to Jo's sisters and including scenes from the novel that were omitted from the previous films, this "Little Women" (the first with a female director, Gillian Armstrong) upholds the unaffected sweetness of the tale while addressing the expectations of marketing to women in the 1990s.

Winona Ryder fills the role of Jo with her own native loveliness but occasionally reveals the acting behind the artlessness. Not so much tomboy or eccentric, she is a misfit both in the world at large and in the bosom of her family. She doesn't want to be a lady or a wife or average, only an author with the freedom to roam, and this sends her spirit wandering in every direction ("the first rule of writing is never write what you know"). Her frustration with life's narrowness is reflected in the movie's more upfront look at class distinctions and in a greater attention to her sisters, who illustrate the ups and downs of the common feminine experience.

Not surprisingly, this "Little Women" has a distinctly modern bent, centered in the character of Marmee (Susan Sarandon). A powerhouse of a mother, she shocks an admirer of Meg's (Trini Alvarado) by declaring that "feminine weakness and fainting spells are the direct result of ... our confining young girls to the house ... and restrictive corsets," and frequently advises her daughters about gender inequality and stereotyping. Thankfully (for the integrity of the story), these pronouncements have an effect on Jo but do not markedly alter the dispositions of retiring Beth (Claire Danes) or uppity Amy (Kirsten Dunst when little, Samantha Mathis when older), nor do they rout Laurie (Christian Bale) and Professor Bhaer (the ravishing Gabriel Byrne, still no match for Lukas) from the playing field.

All in all, Armstrong's "Little Women" rivals the original in its beauty and emotional power, although Ryder doesn't top the indelible impression left by Katharine Hepburn. Both movies honor Alcott's view of the inescapable passage of time and the blessings of life (for women, especially) that make it worthwhile.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.