‘Little Women’ turns 90: Celebrating the Katharine Hepburn classic

Has any young actress ever had a year Katharine Hepburn experienced in 1933? After making her film debut in 1932’s “Bill of Divorcement” with John Barrymore, the 26-year-old with the preternatural cheekbones demonstrated her versatility in three exceptional motion pictures 90 years ago.  The great Kate soared high as famed aviatrix who has a tragic affair with a married member of Parliament in Dorothy Arzner’s daring pre-code romantic drama “Christopher Strong.” Next up was “Morning Glory,” for which she won her first of four best actress Oscars-and of course was a no-show at the ceremony- as an eager young actress. And Hepburn ended the year with “Little Women,” the acclaimed box office hit which made $100,000 during its first week at Radio City Music Hall, based on Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel.

Most “little women” have read Alcott’s autobiographical coming-of-age novel that was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. Set during and after the Civil War, the novel centers on the March sisters of Massachusetts: Meg, the eldest and prettiest of the sisters and the first to marry;  Jo, the second oldest who is bright, feisty, creative and dreams of becoming a writer; Beth, the third in line who is quiet, gentle, kind and loves to play the piano; and Amy, the youngest who is an artist and rather vain and self-centered

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Recently, Gillian Armstrong’s beautiful 1994 adaptation and Greta Gerwig’s acclaimed 2019 have overshadowed the 1933 production. But thanks to Warner Archive’s gorgeous new Blu-Ray from a 4K restoration from best nitrate preserved elements, “Little Women” fans will embrace this lovely film directed by George Cukor who had directed Hepburn in her first film. (Cukor and Hepburn became BFF’s during “Little Women” production and would make eight other films together ending their partnership with the 1979 CBS movie “The Corn is Green.”)

The RKO release starred Hepburn as Jo, Frances Dee as Meg, Jean Parker as Beth and Joan Bennett, who was pregnant during the production, as Amy. Douglass Montgomery played Laurie, literally the boy next door with forms a deep bond with Jo but ends up with Amy; Spring Byington in her film debut as their mother, Marmee; Edna Mae Oliver as Aunt March; Henry Stephenson as Mr. Laurence and Paul Lukas as Professor Bhaer, a poor German linguist who encourages Jo to write and becomes her fiancé.

“Little Women” opened Nov 16 at Radio City Music Hall, to a wonderous review in the New York Times: “’Little Women’ is just as honest in its story as Jo’s nature. It’s stimulating to hear Jo sing out “Look at me world, I’m Jo March and I’m so happy.’ She is the personification of sincerity, a thorough human being. The easy-going fashion in which George Cukor, the director, has set forth the beguiling incidents in pictorial form is so welcome after the stereotype tales with stuffed shirts…. [it] causes one to be quite contented to dwell for the moment with human hearts of old-fashioned days.”

Newspaper ads for the film highlighted Hepburn’s part: “The radiant Star of ‘Morning Glory marches still deeper into your heart as the best loved heroine ever born in a book…See her…living…the immortal Jo”

TCM.com notes that the role was a perfect match for Hepburn, who, like Jo, hailed from New England.  “While some of her other films of the period would establish a fluttery, affected screen image that eventually led her to being declared ‘box office poison’ in the late ‘30s , ‘Little Women’ would show just how fine an actress she could be an provide fans with the perfect embodiment of her brisk, New England strength.”

“Little Women” was the last RKO film production chief David O. Selznick supervised before he went to MGM and by decade’s end, had his own studio. The film earned three Oscar nominations-best film, director and won for adapted screenplay for Victor Heerman and Sarah Y Mason. Many scripts were written before the team’s version was selected. According to Hepburn it was “simple and true and naïve but really believable. Mason and Heerman believed the book, So did I. The others didn’t.”

Cukor noted that the script was “something quite original for the time. It wasn’t slicked up. The construction was very loose, very episodic, like the novel. Things happen, but they’re not all tied together…the writers believed in the book, they understood its vitality which is not namby-pamby in any way.”

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