Little Women

The first major sound-era adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel, and one of the films that built Katharine Hepburn's career; the role of Jo March stayed attached to her for years. George Cukor directed. Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman wrote the screenplay and won the Adapted Screenplay Oscar for it. The film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. Four sisters grow up during the American Civil War with their father at the front: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. They are poor, living on housework and small earnings, writing and staging plays, and each of them has to grow up differently. Jo wants to be a writer and resists marrying. The timing was a choice too: 1933, near the floor of the Depression. A story that presents poverty as ordinary rather than shameful found an immediate audience that year. It opened at Radio City Music Hall on 16 November 1933, broke the house attendance record and took over a hundred thousand dollars in its first week. It also brought Cukor his first nomination for best director. Joan Bennett plays Amy, Frances Dee plays Meg and Jean Parker plays Beth. Who it is for: viewers interested in classical Hollywood adaptation and in early Hepburn. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the darker side of the novel. The film softens the book's hardness and stays warming throughout.