#but i did really like angela lansbury in that so I just FF'd to her scenes

[jobethdalloway]

Which film adaptation of Little Women is your favorite and why? How do you feel about the musical version?

ah, anon! A question for the ages. It's 1994's for me.

That wasn't always my answer - for most my life, it would have been 1949. That was the first version of the story I encountered, on VHS at my grandmother's house. I got to know the sisterhood of Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy through those cozy, Technicolor hues with a surge of admiration and kinship for June Allyson's Jo, while also relating hard to the timidity of Margaret O'Brien's Beth. Elizabeth Taylor as Amy still cracks me up and Janet Leigh is a wonderful Meg. It's the most overlooked of the theatrical film adaptations, in large part I'm sure because it hews very closely to the 1933 OG. (I don't care for that one by comparison; Katharine Hepburn is a super cool person and all but I don't like her in the role of Jo and yet she is the only single actor in the cast with an ounce of charisma. imo. I did love seeing her in good drag tho) (People also don't like some of the liberties taken in 1949, ie switching Amy's and Beth's ages - a complaint I totally understand, but again given that it was my introduction to the story I had no idea this was "wrong")

I saw the '94 version a couple of times in high school and was so devoted to my childhood favorite that it took me a while to warm up to it. But by my twenties, it had become a favorite and it is now a go-to comfort movie for me. It has slightly edged out '49 as my personal favorite and in terms of recommending an adaptation to people I think it's the best one to go to. Part of that is yes nostalgia for '90s period pieces (Thomas Newman's score is unmatched in its comforting coziness) - but also its the way its deep, abiding love for the characters and text is manifested with warmth. The novel is warm, and to me, that feeling is somewhat lost in Gerwig's admirable take.

There is a lot I truly love about the 2019 version - chief among them is righting the one wrong of '94 and giving full dimension back to Amy. It's all there in Alcott's text and tries to be there in Armstrong's. The problem in '94 is not only that young Amy gets so much more screentime than adult Amy, but that Kirsten Dunst is SO memorably fantastic in the part and Samantha Mathis just leaves no impression. I see the vision, like, for the porcelain doll Amy but in the novel the still contained that same fire and drive as Jo. Gerwig and Florence Pugh bring that back into light in the most compelling, beautiful way. She manages what no other film adaptation had done before, which was to set up Amy and Laurie in a believable fashion. She does so much that is so wonderful and I am grateful her film has introduced the story to so many. It's such a beautiful one. (I have a few casting problems with '19; my biggest disappointment on a personal level is that I never felt warmed to Beth the way I have in other versions.)

I must admit that despite my love for Sutton Foster, I don't remember loving the Broadway version. I do remember liking the song "Some Things Are Meant to Be," and should listen to it again. I am however grateful for its existence because it was my Broadway-loving gf's introduction to "Little Women" and yay for that!!

tl;dr: it's 1994 for me, but I love something about every version!