Every little girl reads Little Women. Every little girl however does not LIVE Little Women. Well except for me that is, you would think that my favorite version would be the one staring Kathryn Hepburn. Nope, mine is the 1949 MGM Classic starring June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh and Margaret O'Brien. I can remember watching it one rainy afternoon with my Mother. Thinking sweet lord those dresses are enormous and thanking my lucky stars they weren't in fashion anymore.
I wouldn't have tea parties with my dolls and stuffed animals but instead pretended I was the new girl on the MGM lot going to the canteen to have lunch with the aforementioned ladies. I was a giant gay man even then, chattering about scripts, costumes, who had the smartest wigs and what a scoundrel Errol Flynn was after he had one too many.
June Allyson or Jo March was who I wanted to be. Even though Elizabeth Taylor did have the silliest lines and wore a clothes pin on her nose when she slept. I identified with Jo the independent writer who wasn't trapped by the hoop skirt she wore but only by the times in which she lived. She stages plays for Marmee & the neighbors and throws herself into the most awkward situations escaping them with scraped knees and aplomb to rival the Prince of Wales. I have nothing but love for these little women, it's Jane Austen I want to draw & quarter.
Little Women - Trailer 1949
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