Little Women (1933)

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.

This charming 1933 version of Louisa May Alcott's novel won overwhelming support (plus an Oscar® for Best Adaptation Screenplay). It also looks an 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).
 
"...offers endless pleasure no matter how many times you've seen it; a faithful, beautiful adaptation..."  Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
 


Editor's Note

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.


Plot Summary

The first film based on Louisa May Alcott's 1869 novel of four sisters, who grow from childish pleasures to mature joys, during the Civil War in the absence of their father, a Union army chaplain. The story details the ups and downs in the lives of teenage siblings Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth March, who, along with their mother, try to make ends meet--and maintain their optimism--during a difficult period in their lives. Katharine Hepburn stars as the feisty Jo.