{"id":4291,"date":"2015-04-16T06:44:23","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T10:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4291"},"modified":"2015-05-01T08:15:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T12:15:20","slug":"little-women-dream-cast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4291","title":{"rendered":"Little Women Dream Cast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(photo: Karen Cox, Creative Commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

Louisa May Alcott\u2019s Little Women<\/em>, originally published in two volumes almost 150 years ago\u2014and readable here<\/a> (if \u201cyour\u201d copy got lost)\u2014has been a staple of schoolgirl reading ever since. \u201cLike every other girl who ever read Louisa May Alcott\u2019s novel, I wanted to be Jo: creative, strong-minded and independent,\u201d says NPR\u2019s Lynn Neary<\/a>, going on to wonder whether Jo sets too high a standard. (And I ask, what are standards for, if not to be aspirational?)<\/p>\n

Adult re-readers may want to reexamine their assumptions about this work and may find darker commentary underlying the surface action. \u201cLittle Women<\/em> is brutal, a ferocious wolf dressed up in the curly white sermons and sentimental homilies of children\u2019s stories, says Deborah Weisgall in The American Prospect<\/em>,<\/a> and its larger themes of thwarted ambition, not fitting in, and family rivalries make it \u201can enduring model for women\u2019s stories, but it is rarely considered literature itself. It should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The archetypical sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy and their travails during the Civil War were based largely on Alcott\u2019s life<\/a> with three sisters. Almost inevitably, Hollywood has produced five movies, including two silent films of the March sisters\u2019 story. News that a new version of the film is in the works has prompted speculation about which actors might play the leads, and \u201cdream casts\u201d have been proposed by both Entertainment Weekly<\/em><\/a> and the website Book Riot<\/a>, which proposes an especially bold choice for Professor Bhaer, the portly German who ends up marrying you-know-who (and would finally make that outcome rather palatable).<\/p>\n

In 1933, the sisters were played by Frances Dee (Meg), Katharine Hepburn (perfect as Jo), Jane Parker (Beth), and Joan Bennett (Amy), with neighbor and love interest Laurence, called Laurie, played by Douglass Montgomery. The 1949 cast\u2014a real dream cast\u2014included Janet Leigh (Meg), June Allyson (Jo), Beth Margaret O\u2019Brien (Beth), and Elizabeth Taylor (Amy). Peter Lawford played Laurie. Most recently, in 1994 (trailer<\/a>), Trini Alvarado (Meg), Winona Ryder (Jo), Claire Danes (Beth), Kirsten Dunst (Amy), and Christian Bale (Laurie) led the cast.<\/p>\n

For generations, young readers have been heartbroken\u2014me included\u2014that conniving Amy, not wonderful Jo, ends up with Laurie. Fan fiction has finally provided the sought-after happy ending. FanFiction.net has a sizable Little Women<\/em> fandom<\/a>, and the fic I glanced at was totally PG, though I did not review all 316 entries. Here\u2019s a sweet one<\/a>. Pretend you\u2019re twelve years old again and swoon.
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