Elizabeth Taylor in "Little Women" (1949)

Elizabeth Taylor in "Little Women" (image from JSR Pages)

REVIEW:
Elizabeth Taylor ... blonde! A real shock for the fans of the actress ... "Little Women" is the film that ends the teenage movie years of Elizabeth Taylor. After "Cynthia" Liz Taylor made two more movies: "A Date With Judy" and "Julia Misbehaves", both released in 1948. In 1949, at the age of 17, Elizabeth Taylor is already a first-hand star of the M.G.M. Studios, a real money maker. Metro bosses know they have on contract the only actress with the potential to become America's No. 1 star and they will distribute her only in roles of young, rich, beautiful and well educated women.

"Little Women" is a landmark film - M.G.M. brand - a family story in a fabulous setting, adapted from one of the most popular novels of the American literature.

FILM TITLE
"LITTLE WOMEN"/"THE FOUR DAUGHTERS OF DR. MARCH" (U.S.A./M.G.M./1949)

PROMO
"The thrills of the first love!" (M.G.M.).

OVERVIEW
The film focuses on a family' life, forced to go through the hardships of the American Civil War. Everything is viewed through the eyes of Jo, considered a young writer, who keeps a kind of diary about their life and the shortcomings that they have to go through every day. Besides her, there are the other three sisters: Meg (more conventional), Beth (the innocent of the family) and Amy (the precocious). Jo's diary describes the emotions, thoughts and feelings that the four girls go through and the way they are trying to become stronger and face the cruel reality. The four daughters of Dr. March are some very sympathetic characters that have become the most faithful friends for generations of readers around the world.

CAST
June Allison (Jo March), Peter Lawford (Theodore Laurence), Margaret O'Brien (Beth March), Elizabeth Taylor (Amy March), Janet Leigh (Meg March), Mary Astor (Marmee).
DIRECTED BY
Mervyn LeRoy.
SCREENPLAY
Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason and Andrew Solt, after the novel with the same title by Louisa May Alcott.
PRODUCED BY
Mervyn LeRoy.
COLOR
Technicolor.
DURATION
121 minutes.
GENRE
drama, family, history.
PRODUCTION DATES
between June-September 1948.
RELEASED
March 1949.

NOMINATED at
- Oscar for Best Color Picture.
AWARDS
- Oscar for Best Art Direction.

TRIVIA
- the first adaptation, from 1933, was directed by George Cukor and had Katharine Hepburn in the lead part, as Jo March;
- June Allison was 32 years old when she played Jo March, as she was supposed to be 15 years younger;
- Margaret O'Brien's basket is the same that Judy Garland had in "The Wizard of Oz";
- the snowflakes in the movie are actually... corn flakes!
- this film is considered one of the best films to watch during Christmas time.

Watch TRAILER here.