Best “ Little Women”

OP? You forgot Vivian Vance.

See, I read the book many times, but never watched any of the movies.

What about the BBC version from 2017 with Emily Watson, Maya Hawke, Angela Lansbury, Michael Gambon and homosexualist Julian Morris?

I liked Julian as John Brooke (2017) and Timmy as Laurie (2019), but the 1994 version of the movie was my favorite.

Don't forget the 1978 miniseries with DL faves SUSAN DEY ("Jo"), MEREDITH BAXTER ("Meg"), and EVE PLUMB ("Beth"), featuring GREER GARSON ("Aunt March"), Designing Women's RICHARD GILLILAND ("Laurie") and WILLIAM fucking SHATNER ("Bhaer").

Hepburn was dreadful as Jo! She speaks her lines with some weird, fucked-up accent, none of the rest of the Marches spoke that way. Another problem was Joan Bennett, not her performance, but, casting an adult in a child's role is not a great idea. A bit of trivia: Joan was pregnant, hence the huge pinafore she wears in the beginning of the movie. My favorite is 1994 version, with the 1949 version a close second. Kirsten Dunst was adorable as Amy, the actress who played the adult Amy was quite insipid. The worst Beth: Margaret O'Brien, I kept expecting her to grab a hatchet & slay her family.

Fun fact... Little Women is volume 1 of a trilogy... the second volume was Little Men and the third was Jo's Boys.

From Wikipedia... Little Women was an immediate commercial and critical success, with readers eager for more about the characters. Alcott quickly completed a second volume (titled Good Wives in the United Kingdom, though the name originated with the publisher and not Alcott). It was also met with success. The two volumes were issued in 1880 as a single novel titled Little Women. Alcott subsequently wrote two sequels to her popular work, both also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886).

I read Little Men - an interesting work, it focuses on Jo and Prof. Bahr who run a school for boys (they have Plumfield, after all), many lessons are taught, along with trials and tribulations.

There's also the musical, with DL fave Sutton Foster, and Maureen McGovern as Marmee.

I've read both sequels and don't remember a thing about them.

Alcott was grateful the books provided financial security since her father was unemployed due to depression (in Little Women the father is physically absent instead of emotionally, which was the reality) but she hated the books. "I'm tired of writing this moral pap for the young" she said, and was happy to return to her 'blood and thunder" mysteries featuring unmarried feminists having adventures.

[quote]I read Little Men - an interesting work, it focuses on Jo and Prof. Bahr who run a school for boys (they have Plumfield, after all), many lessons are taught, along with trials and tribulations.

In the '90s, there was a film version with Mariel Hemingway as "Jo' and Chris Sarandon as "Bhaer."

I thought Hepburn and Allyson were both hammy (and looked too old to come across as teens)

I'm not even a huge fan of hers but I thought Winona made a great Jo

I still think the 1994 version is the best

Has there been an all-POC version yet?

Alcott’s father wasn’t so much depressed as useless at earning money. Bronson Alcott, was a philosopher and educator who never brought in sufficient income to support his family, and was given to such ventures as Fruitlands, a utopian farming community founded by a group of transcendentalists who had no previous farming experience. (“Transcendental Wild Oats,” Louisa’s satirical account of this period, is told with enjoyable humor and sarcasm.) It was stressful to grow up in a household constantly on the brink of financial collapse, which drove Louisa’s desire to earn money.

In general, most adaptations outside of the 1994 and 2019 versions don’t hold up particularly well. June Allyson was mawkish and annoying as Jo in the 1940s Little Women, a version that made the particularly creepy choice to cast Elizabeth Taylor, then in her mid-teens, as the younger sister of prepubescent Margaret O’Brien.

The 1994 version was uneven in its casting (on her deathbed, Claire Danes as Beth looked far more robust than the fragile Winona Ryder as Jo, Samantha Mathis was a snooze compared to Kirsten Dunst’s portrayal of Amy, and Gabriel Byrne, while handsome and appealing, was a little too old and unconvincing as a German). Otherwise, the movie is a gem: few directors adapt historic girls’ literature with Gillian Anderson’s sensitivity and eye for beauty. Christian Bale’s portrayal of Laurie is particularly funny because he only read the script, not the book, and the script emphasizes Laurie’s desire to join the March family at all costs. (In the book, Laurie is a broader character.) Bale’s performance works very well, but it is easy to see that his Laurie is not grounded in anything beyond what was written for the movie character. (In Anderson’s audio commentary, she mentions telling him that if he were cast in any future movies based on books, he should probably read them - advice he apparently took to heart since he is known for excessive preparation now.)

The 2019 movie was notable for capturing Jo’s entrepreneurial spirit and suggesting to the audience that the events onscreen are based on Jo/Louisa’s literary telling. Eliza Scanlen was the best onscreen Beth so far, Saoirse Ronan a good Jo, and Florence Pugh excellent as adult Amy but unnerving as the 12 year old version of the character. Laura Dern wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t convincing as a 19th century New England matriarch - one critic called her “Malibu Marmee,” which summed up her performance. Timothee is a skilled actor, but he looked like a little boy compared to the young women cast as his peers (even though they were chronologically his peers). It was also nice to see more screentime given to events in the book that have seldom made it into cinematic adaptations, like Jo taking Beth to the beach near the end of Beth’s life, spending time together as sisters as Beth is dying.

*Gillian Armstrong, oh dear!

[quote] Alcott’s father wasn’t so much depressed as useless at earning money

He was both.

The Alcotts, of course. Bronson was an uneducated peddler who changed his name from Alcox to better fit in with the other, classier Transcendentalists. Lizzie Alcott, the real Beth, was angry about her illness, and when she died, Louisa and Abba, the real Marmee, saw a thin mist rise from her body! Then there's Louisa's adventure with Thoreau, the war, her books, all of it.

I also prefer the 1994 version, but disagree about Danes. I thought she was wonderful and her deathbed scene gets me every time. No Laurie is better than Bale and no Amy beats Dunst (Mathis thankfully has much less screen time so she's only a minor annoyance as older Amy).

The 1933 version can only be watched with some forbearance with early 30's acting styles. It's creaky and aged badly.

The 1949 version is a misfire in the worst MGM cotton candy cinema tradition, not helped by the garish technicolor.

Gerwig's version has some strong elements, but I wish she had followed Armstrong's lead by casting two actresses as Amy. Garrel is the right age for Behr, but there was much more chemistry between Ryder and Byrne I'm the 1994 film compared to Ronan and Garrel.

As much as I hate hammy old Katherine Hepburn, I hate talentless June Alison even more…

And you managed to misspell both of their names! Brava!

Mary Wickes was a much better Aunt March in the 1994 version than Streep in the 2019 film.

For pure cringe, not much can beat the cloying Spring Byington as Marmee in the 1933 version.

[quote]But Laura Dern was the best Marmee.

I have to disagree. She's too modern. It's near impossible to believe that Dern ever lived in the 1800s.

Wynonna is the perfect Jo and I love the 1994 version. It was also smart to cast Amy with both an older and younger actress. In the previous screen incarnations I always thought Beth was the youngest because the Amy's looked too old at the start. There's much to admire in Gerwig's LW but the shifting back and forth in time gets annoying and some of the casting (Watson, Streep and Chalamet) doesn't work for me. I tried watching the Junie version today on TCM but it's really terrible with poor Mary Astor, a brilliant actress, stuck with Marmee.

I like the 1994 version but agree about Laura Dern (and also Bob Odenkirk) in the recent version. Timmy was okay.

I like the 1994 version best but I wish Susan Sarandon weren’t in it, or in anything for that matter.

[quote] Mary Wickes was a much better Aunt March in the 1994 version than Streep in the 2019 film. For pure cringe, not much can beat the cloying Spring Byington as Marmee in the 1933 version.

Mary Wickes and Spring Byington in the same post! It's almost like a mid-century Michfest!

Susan Sarandon is perfect as Marmee.

R25, is Marmee supposed to be smug and sanctimonious? I haven't read the book in years, but that was totally how Sarandon played the role. I like Gerwig's version the best if only because she didn't attempt to a chronological linear narrative. I liked her placing Beth's recovery adjacent to her death, I thought that worked well. Pugh finally made Amy likable (the ideal would have been Dunst as young Amy and Pugh as older Amy) without undermining the integrity of the character. I felt Gerwig's version foregrounded the Jo/Amy rivalry and their embodiment of the two realities for women during the time (unfulfilled idealism/pragmatic realism). I did not like Dern as Marmee nor Odenkirk as Mr March. I did actually like Chalamet's casting as he and Ronan's gender ambiguity matched well and then his decidedly lithe, boyish frame was so in contrast to Pugh's robust feminine curves.

R26, you have a point about how Chalamet’s boyishness makes Ronan and Pugh seem more (little) womenly in contrast. The proposal scene in the 2019 movie captures the youthful histrionics Alcott gave to her characters when Jo turns Laurie down. This has a lot to do with how wrong Ronan’s Jo and Chalamet’s Laurie look in relation to each other, enhanced by Greta Gerwig’s lively visual storytelling. The mismatch is obvious, as Alcott intended.

Gillian Armstrong places Laurie and Jo on the same level in the proposal scene, and Winona Ryder portrays Jo as shocked and dismayed as she turns down the best friend she never considered might see her as a potential wife, trying not to break his heart while his heart visibly shatters into a million pieces. It’s a scene that captures why so many readers were heartbroken Jo refused Laurie.

I do appreciate how closely Gerwig’s version captures the spirit of the book, even though non-linear storytelling prevented the movie from being what it could have. I also felt that the cast was generally less charismatic, though there was no one I completely disliked. Emma Watson’s lackluster performance as Meg was a drawback. She wasn’t terrible, but lacked the charisma and warmth Trini Alvarado brought to Meg in the 1994 version. It was easy to believe Alvarado’s Meg and Ryder’s Jo as sisters.

I thought Emily Watson was a really good Marmee in the BBC version

Linda Hunt and Zelda Rubinstein.

The 1994 version is head and shoulders the best version and the most faithful to the book. Ryder is the perfect Jo and Bale is marvelous as Laurie. Agree that Danes is devastating as Beth and that death scene is a true tearjerker.

1949 followed by 1994.

You may hate Hepburn today as Jo but it was her performance under Cukor's direction which made it the enormous relevatory success it was in'33.

I suppose because in the 1990s they went out of their way to be faithful to the past in period films, I have always felt transported to 1860s Massachusetts in the '94 version.

Also, great are the Oscar-nominated score and costumes by Thomas Newman and Colleen Atwood, respectively.

The 2019 was too infused with modern sensibilities, and the costumes/hairstyles were all wrong!

Even just the MUSIC from the Winona Ryder version makes me choke up!

The one with Jan Brady was the best. Seriously. It seemed a story more suited for TV than the big screen. The sets were perfect. The acting good. It didn't try to be more than it was.

Winona Ryder + Christian Bale = 🔥

Has Susan Dey commented yet?

OP, I actually like Peter Lawford as Laurie, even though he’s not a great actor. For whatever reason, I’ll stop and watch any movie he’s in. Having said that, Katharine Hepburn’s Jo is so strident in that version that she’s exhausting: “CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS!”

And I just remembered that they are in completely different versions. Oof.

The 1978 version tried to continue the next year as an open ended TV series. Since Beth had of course already died in the mini series, they brought Eve Plumb back as “Cousin Melissa” (??)

I have a sick desire to see this.

Sarah Polley was originally announced to do the adaptation Greta Gerwig did.

That would have been interesting, particularly if she had used Julie Christie as Aunt March.

R40, that was the season Fred Silverman launched "the New NBC." An unqualified disaster.

He tried to make Little Women NBC's The Waltons, even airing it against The Waltons ... and Mork & Mindy.

It achieved record (low) ratings and was gone in a month.

New York Times review of short lived 1979 series:

————

[bold]TV: NBC Puts ‘Little Women’ On Television[/bold]

[italic]The March girls of “Little Women” aren't so little- any more: Meg has married John, Amy is hitched to Laurie, Jo is engaged to Professor Bhaer. Mind, if you don't know where Beth is, you probably weren't even watching the debut of this series, which was shown on NBC‐TV at 8 P.M. on Thursday, in the suicide slot opposite “Mork and Mindy.”

The idea, apparently, was to combine the spicy family feuding of “Dallas” with the small‐town uprightness of “The Waltons.” But there were problems. The feuding didn't come to much: Laurie just shouted wanly at Robert Young's Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. Young delivered a kindly answer from behind a forest of white facial hair. The small town didn't come to much, either: The whole program did a grave disservice to beautiful Concord, Mass., where the March family supposedly lived, and made topical dinnertable conversation. Sample remark: “You know, Emerson had an interesting idea ... what if Whitman had written his poetry as prose?”

As for spice, this episode revolved around the premarital travails of Jo, who was played by Jessica Harper, a sweet‐faced actress with an uncanny knack for putting the accent in any sentence in the spot where you'd believe it least. Everybody thought Jo's beloved Professor had been drinking — but he hadn't, he was sick. Everyone thought Jo had spent the night in the Professor's room — but she hadn't, she had merely stayed with him till the wee hours trying to nurse him back to health. This was deemed enough of a plot to carry a whole hour, even though it involved a number of scenes in which either Jo or the Professor lay alone in bed, trying to sleep.

The episode culminated in a standoff: “Well, you may have been the stronger this time, Friedrich, but next time we'll see,” Jo said. Oh no we won't.

Jessica Harper as Jo!! Well, now I need to see this.

I reread Little Men about ten years ago and it was awful. So sanctimonious and maudlin. But Little Woman also has that element. I’ve reread it many times and as a kid I’d just skip those parts but I read it again recently and I just can not. Also being a Jo-Laurie fan, I could never understand why she turned him down. They were great friends which is a solid basis for marriage. Of course I found Prof. Baer (sp) repulsive. Not even casting Gabriel Byrne helped. He was much too holier than thou.

^ from the book’s description, I pictured him as looking like Mr Kennedy in the movie of GWTW.

Haven't read the book in forever but my impression of Professor Bhaer was of an old, cranky dude. I was shocked when he turned out to be Jo's love interest. And yes, never understood why she rejected young, handsome, wealthy, head over heels in love with her Laurie.

Emma Watson must surely win the award for worst performance in a "Little Women" adaptation

Winona as Jo was her best performance. Everything else she has done, imo, was over praised. Except maybe her performance in “Heathers.”

In Greta’s version, having Marmee tell a fellow volunteer that she was ashamed of her country (or something along those lines) took me right out of the movie. It was such a modern take. There was another scene where Marmee said something that was very contemporary in attitude that also took me out of the movie. So I agree that Dern’s character didn’t entirely work, but wasn’t that Greta’s direction?

I think they all have their pro and cons. The cons: The one with that Sorsha Ronan was awful IMO along with the Susan Dey version. Wynona was too pretty and ethereal for Jo. Liz Taylor in a blonde wig? Just no. I actually like Hepburn as Jo, hammy though she was. June Allyson's bangs were always distracting, never changed and distracted from an actually pretty face.

The best part of the Gerwig LW is when Jo runs down the stairs thinking Beth has died but is overjoyed to find her sitting at the kitchen table with Marmee. When she does the same thing later on and sees Marmee at the table alone and realizing Beth is gone it's really devastating.

The one with Winona Ryder.

So happy to see the 1994 version getting its due here. It's my favorite.

I liked the musical, too.

Christian Bale as Laurie!!!!

I love the opening credits of the 1994 version -- and that lovely Thomas Newman score!

Really sets the mood and transports you back from the get-go.

The 1994 version might just be my favorite Christmas movie. Growing up, I watched it every Christmas Eve with my siblings.

The 90s version is perfection and should have gotten more Oscar nominations.

Susan Sarandon is still a cunt.

Word is once she's done playing Norma, Glenn will be pitching herself as the next Amy. Oscar tango bravo, I say!

Well, Marmee’s a bit of a sanctimonious, condescending cunt herself, IMHO.

#ByCunts4Cunts

Catherine Zeta-Jones IS Beth!

R59, sorry, but I'm a little too young for that role! Maybe in a couple years!

CZJ IS the Hummel baby who gives Beth Scarlett fever.

I prefer the 1994 version with Ryder, Danes and Sarandon.. It had the right feel and mood that the others lacked.

June was thirty three years old when she played Jo. And still annoying af.

That last shot of Ryder and Byrne in the rain is so beautiful. Dunst and Mathis were the least annoying of all the Amy's. At times Pugh acted like she was playing Amy from Jersey City. Mathis was Amy who blossomed into a young woman the more mature Laurie would want to marry. Pugh and Timmy seemed more like friends.

Beth's death scene in the 94 version was amazing. Ryder and Danes were amazing.

Jo was the original baby dyke

Ryder wipes the floor with all the other Jos. Yes she's really pretty. But Ryder has always been awkward in her beauty which really works for the character. Ryder doesn't know how to flaunt how pretty she really is in real life.

I love Ryder as the bitter prima ballerina in BLACK SWAN.

I liked the version where Beth comes back as a vampre.

I’m glad someone mentioned the Little Women musical, because I can’t listen to “Some Things Are Meant To Be” without bawling my eyes out.

Full disclosure: my son played Laurie in a school production and we ran lines and sang together all winter, so I learned to love that musical. MARY, I know, but it’s really good…-

Also from the musical…

Starring apparent Hugh Jackman homewrecker Sutton Foster as Jo and confirmed gay Danny Gurwin as Laurie:

^the harmonies in this piece are difficult!

I also learned to love the musical version when i was involved in a production of it. I had never even really listened to it before.

It grows on you and is really a great version of the book.

If someone does it in your area, and you are a fan of the story, I highly recommend you give it a try.

I wonder why the musical wasn't more successful on Broadway. It had a major star and it seems to have an afterlife in local productions.

It debuted in a pretty strong season for new original musicals. It was up against Spamalot, The Light in the Piazza, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. As such, Sutton Foster received the show's only Tony nomination.

r76 Good point. I've seen all of those other shows (some multiple times), but not "Little Women."

Some director or producer really has to champion the musical if it's to be included in a theatre's season.....and it's profile is not high enough.....people see the title and assume they know what it is......

Regarding the stage musical... I read through 2 reviews from when the show opened and neither was a rave. They liked the production, but didn't swoon or encourage people to rush and see. Perhaps the musical is just like many others that don't break through for different reasons... something that fans enjoy and share with their friends.

TCM showing Little Women 1949. It’s ok hard seeing Mary Astor as mother.I read she hated giving up femme fatale roles.

[quote]Jo's Boys (1886).

Could've been a spinoff from "The Facts of Life."

1994 and Winona Ryder pronounced Concord the New England way. It's not ConCord.

[quote] June is so much better. Less lesbian in her performance.

if you go back to the original book, Jo is pretty lesbian-like. June is the least like Alcott's Jo.

Oh...Christopher Columbus!!

Hideous in every movie version, hideous in radio and television versions, hideous in comic books and girls' digests and book club discussions. Hideous as a novel, hideous in its conception and hideous in its pre-germinal state lurking to emerge from the corrupted chemicals in Miss Alcott's feeble, vulgar brain.

And I speak as an insider.

Yes as said above Hepburn became a huge star because of her performance as Jo. It opened at Radio City and was an immediate sensation. She carried the film to an enormous success which none of the remakes have come close to achieving no matter how you may feel about it. When I finally got to see it at MOMA I found it a disappointment being both a Cukor and Hepburn fan.

Was June historically accurate in her portrayal? I don't think they had bladder pads in the 19th century.

Outrage over the 2019 costumes:

In the early 70's PBS aired an hour weekly mini-series of Little Women. I had to watch it for school, and my Mother loved the original with Hepburn, so she was glued to the set. It was shot on videotape, but engrossing. I just can't name one actor in it.

Listening to Thomas Newman's gorgeous score to the 1994 version right now. Thanks R80 for bumping this thread!

r89 This one? It was made by the BBC.

Hepburn is a STAR! Her performance is the only one that stands out for me. As much as the other actresses seek to underplay the part, it only serves to shine a light on the brilliance of the 1933 interpretation. Still, little Margaret O’Brien is the best Beth in my opinion. I always act like her when I’m stricken with the least little thing. “Don’t cry. I always knew I’d be the first one to die…” I honestly don’t know what you people want out of entertainment anymore if joyless1994 defines pizzazz for your culture. Still, to each her own.

[italic]Je suis la petite femmes!

[quote]r89 In the early 70's PBS aired an hour weekly mini-series of Little Women. I had to watch it for school… engrossing

A certain Jo Rowbottom played Meg.

Could she really not find a better stage name?

The sets for the 1994 version are pretty faithfully built to follow the interiors of Orchard House, the March home in Concord. And the filmmakers had a decent budget to do that with - so when you see that version you do get a fairly accurate look into what their home was like, back in the day.

Best little women? How about Kristin Chenoweth, Hillary Duff, and Kiernan Shipka?

There was also a 1978 miniseries with DL icons Susan Dey (as Jo), Meredith baxter (as Meg), and Eve Plumb (as Beth). the mind positively explodes at the possibilities. Dorothy Maguire was Marmee and Greer garson was Aunt March.

I never saw it, but I bet when Beth dies, Susan Dey as Jo refused comment.

It’s pronounced CON-kerd.

Needles to say, the Susan Dey/William Shatner version should by rights be the one all others are measured against on DL.

Of course, every producer and financier in town wanted a piece of Eve Plumb after her shattering, bravura performance in DAWN: PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE RUNAWAY. [italic]But is she a Beth?[/italic] That character is a sickly sweet, homespun little doe that plays with kittens on the couch, too shy to even attend school!

I wonder if her hands were tied in this role from the very beginning.

[quote]I never saw it, but I bet when Beth dies, Susan Dey as Jo refused comment.

😂

[quote]It’s pronounced CON-kerd,

More like CON-kid. 🤣

[quote] At times Pugh acted like she was playing Amy from Jersey City.

Pugh was a bizarre choice to play Amy. She has a deep mature voice, she was the most voluptuous of the cast and as bizarre as she was playing the youngest character she was even worse as adult Amy because she was boring.