Day 46/49 - Little Women (1994)

Is there any film more joyfully Americana than Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women?

In 1933, “women’s director” George Cukor directed a black and white version with Katharine Hepburn (Jo), Joan Bennett (Amy),  Jean Parker (Beth), Frances Dee (Meg), Spring Byington (Marmee), and Douglass Montgomery (Laurie). Costumes were by Walter Plunkett, who later designed the award-winning Gone with the Wind and Singing in the Rain.

In 1946 David O. Selznick began a production to star Jennifer Jones (Jo), Diana Lynn (Amy), Bambi Linn (Beth), Rhonda Fleming (Meg), Anne Revere (Marmee) and John Dall (Laurie), but because of the ordeal of filming Duel in the Sun, the property and script were sold and the film was scrapped.

 In 1949, Mervyn LeRoy directed an MGM color version with June Allyson (Jo), Janet Leigh (Meg), Margaret O’Brien (Beth), Elizabeth Taylor (Amy), Mary Astor (Marmee), and Peter Lawford (Laurie).  Again costumes were designed by Walter Plunkett in lush but often anachronistic 1860-1870s costumes. (In one of the scenes, a zipper closure can be seen in the back of Marmee’s dress). The script changes the birth order so that young Margaret O’Brien can do the Beth death scene. The film is in the broad MGM classic style. In many ways, the early scenes of the film are the most memorable, especially the Christmas scenes which look like early Currier & Ives prints. [Note how the same musical theme has been reused from the 1933 film.]

Today, I rewatched one of the latest incarnations of the book, directed by Gillian Armstrong in 1994, and starring Susan Sarandon (Marmie), Winona Ryder (Jo), Trini Alvarado (Meg), Kirsten Dunst & Samantha Mathis (Amy), Claire Danes (Beth), and Christian Bale (Laurie). Sarandon makes a strong Marmee and although Ryder seems a little weak in her role, the ensemble acting works. Danes gives a touching death scene.

The last version of the film expands on the book and becomes truly a woman’s perspective of the Civil War Period. Women throughout the film are seen naturally doing women’s activities: folding clothes, baking and cooking, sewing, living with and loving cats and little dogs, gardening, arranging flowers, admiring fabrics, tending children, painting china and later oil painting, writing, entertaining themselves. The film is filled with period quilts, dolls, historically faithful clothing, glorious attics and parlors, and Concord, Massachusetts, environments. The set interiors of the house are patterned after Louisa May Alcott’s family home, Orchard House.

According to the IMDB article on the film regarding Colleen Atwood's costumes:
Costumes are handed down from older sister to younger, to underline both the family's poverty and the connections between sisters. Jo's red plaid dress worn to the ball where she meets Laurie is worn the following Christmas by Beth when she comes down the stairs after being ill; Jo and Beth are close to each other, as Meg and Amy are close to each other. Meg's blue striped dress that she doesn't end up wearing to Belle Gardiner's debut ball is worn years later by Amy in the scene where she announces she's going to Europe with Aunt March. 

I have seen this version at least five times, and find I continue to enjoy it more each time I see it.

Little Women (1994) *****