the audience applauded

An Exercise In Nonsense

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I didn't know that this movie would be so long, but seeing as how I didn't want it to end, that means I must have been watching a great movie! It was great to see a lesser known Oscar winning film. It was just so enjoyable to see a film that was realistic that didn't really have a single storyline but instead just showed a slice of life story. A true work of art is timeless and this actually fits the bill very nicely. I admit that the costumes and locations are old, but most of the morals taught in the film (and original book) still hold up today. It actually kind of reminded me of "A Christmas Story" with all the little subplots going on.I can't want to really compare Louisa May Alcott to Jane Austen. There were just a lot of movies based on classic novels about women in the 1800's. Even the title is sincere. It really does tell the story of little women who are learning to grow up. I especially like the plot involving Jo trying to get a novel published. Hey, when you're a writer in real life you know what it's like to be a writer! As an early Technicolor film, it was so beautiful looking. It was so unique for its day. We even get to deal with some pretty dark topics like infants dying. It's as great as it was back then as it is now. ***1/2

MGM's Technicolor remake of RKO's 1934 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's timeless tale about four sisters on the Civil War home front, enacted by an all-star cast. June Allyson is a decent Jo; she doesn't attempt to make the part an iconic role, she's just gaily doing her duties as a Metro contract player. Elizabeth Taylor's self-centered Amy gets the lion's share of the funny lines, while Margaret O'Brien is typecast as the wilting Beth, glowing with spunky impertinence even while at death's door! Peter Lawford is well cast (for once) as Jo's cast-off 'Laurie', while Rossano Brazzi is surprisingly warm and nervously friendly as the professor who helps writer Jo get her work published. The picture has a feel-goodness about it which touches a lot of viewers, yet this familial unit isn't entirely convincing, and the fussy decoration and studio gloss turn the scenario into an artificial world of hugs and kisses. **1/2 from ****

Louisa May Alcott's novel is not only a beloved American classic but is also well-known in Britain, so I need not repeat the plot here. Suffice it to say that it concerns the adventures of four sisters growing up in a small New England town during the Civil War, in which their father is fighting. The novel has been filmed a number of times but I have not seen any of the other films apart from the 1994 version starring Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder, and as that was many years ago I will not attempt a direct comparison. During the forties and early fifties, many films set in the Victorian period were made in black- and-white, "Dragonwyck" being an example. MGM, however, decided to make "Little Women" in Technicolor, and I think that this decision paid off. Like the British "An Ideal Husband", also from the late forties, the film can be seen as an early example of the "heritage cinema" style of film-making. Although it was filmed in a studio rather than on location, there are loving recreations of Victorian interiors and costumes, all shot in warm, rich colour. There is an emphasis on dark reds and greens, possibly because these colours were felt to be particularly appropriate to Christmas, the season during which much of the action in the first half takes place. My main complaint about the film would be its often eccentric casting. I never thought it would be possible to make the gorgeous teenage Elizabeth Taylor look unattractive, but here as Amy, in a blonde wig and too much make-up, she looks very odd indeed. As in some of her other early films the London-born Taylor struggles with an American accent, but at least she does make an effort, unlike the former England cricket captain Sir C. Aubrey Smith, who makes no effort at all and simply plays his character, old Mr. Laurence, as an upper-class British gentleman. (This was Smith's final film; he died before it was released. Professor Bhaer is played by the Italian actor Rossano Brazzi, which explains why this German professor speaks not only English but also his native language with an Italian accent and believes that his country's greatest poet had the surname "Getta". Lucile Watson makes Aunt March seem too unpleasant, and the kind heart which Aunt March is supposed to hide beneath her gruff exterior remains too well-hidden. The worst piece of miscasting, however, is that of June Allyson as Jo, probably the most important character in the story. Jo is supposed to be a teenager- her date of birth is given as 1846- so why was the 32-year- old Allyson cast in the role? Allyson was a decade older than Janet Leigh, who plays Jo's supposedly older sister Meg, and only eleven years younger than Mary Astor, who plays her mother. Jo, an independent and free-spirited girl, is often hot-tempered and impetuous, but we can forgive her because these are the sins of youth and because we admire her spirit. At least, we can forgive the Jo of the novel. Allyson's Jo is much less forgivable, if only because it is all too obvious that she is no longer in her first flush of youth, and she can come across as petulant and sharp-tongued, and also rather cruel in her treatment of her admirer Laurie. Allyson's harsh accent didn't help matters either. Taylor seemed rather weak as the vain, self-obsessed Amy, but I felt she might have made a better Jo.Leigh is better as Meg, but she is not given a very big role in this film; the best of the sisters is Margaret O'Brien who makes an endearing Beth, here played as a child although in the novel she is older than Amy. Astor is also good as "Marmee", as is Smith if one can overlook his accent. The film keeps reasonably close to Alcott's plot although there are a few minor changes. Although there are references to the Civil War, for example, the causes of that war are never mentioned. I suspect that this change would not have pleased Alcott, who held strongly anti-slavery opinions, but Hollywood producers, with an eye on the Southern box- office, were always wary of making films which might be seen as advocating the Northern cause too strongly. Overall, the film should please lovers of the novel, but I felt that it would have been improved by more appropriate casting. 6/10 An odd coincidence. When I read the book, many years ago, I was amused that Jo's first boyfriend (whose real name is Theodore Laurence) was called "Teddy" and her second "Bear", which is how Professor Bhaer's surname is pronounced, and what it means, in German. As the expression "Teddy Bear" did not exist in Alcott's lifetime this would not have struck her original readers as odd in any way, but I wonder if this was why Theodore is never referred to as "Teddy" in the film.

Even Louisa May Alcott would have been disappointed wih this 1949 remake.With her hoarse voice, June Allyson lacks the exuberance of Katharine Hepburn. Elizabeth Taylor is as sour at the beginning as can be. She is almost cruel and as self-centered as they come. Did it make sense to all that while her young sister was dying, she went off to Europe with her maiden aunt, nicely played by Lucile Watson. Watson did an excellent job in reprising the role so memorably created by Edna Mae Oliver in the 1933 original. However, must they have made the trip in order to catch up with Peter Lawford, who had been abandoned by Jo (Allyson)?Janet Leigh, as the sister who married, and "dad" Leon Ames are totally wasted here. Leigh appears but says so little and does anyone realize that when Ayres appeared, the great Civil War must have ended. What happened there?Rosano Brazzi is way out of his league as the foreign-born professor who brings culture and love into the life of Jo.