The first motion picture based on Louisa May Alcott's gently humorous 1869 classic of four sisters who learn moral lessons and grow from children to adults in Civil War-era Massachusetts, this film chronicles the lives of the teenage March sisters
Jo (Katharine Hepburn), Meg (Frances Dee), Amy (Joan Bennett), and Beth (Jean Parker), who, in the company of their mother, try to maintain positive attitudes in the face of hardship. Hepburn infuses her role with a raw, awkward energy, revealing a vividness and buoyancy beneath her Victorian reserve. The movie, like the novel, is unapologetically sentimental, playing skillfully at the heart strings; based on an Oscar-winning adaptation by Victor Heerman and Sarah Mason and able direction by George Cukor, it is careful to avoid clichés, developing into an authentically moving story.