George Cukor, who directed the first (excluding silents) and best film version of Little Women, once remarked that he wasn't happy when first handed the assignment: "It was a story that little girls read, like Elsie Dinsmore," he said. But he soon changed his tune. Louisa May Alcott's novel is a grown-up story for grownups, full of New England backbone and well drawn characters who really do mature and deepen. Watching Cukor's 1933 film, with Katharine Hepburn's exuberant, career-defining Jo March, one is immediately struck by how innately musical the material is. It's emotional, honest, touching, and every feeling Jo expresses is a song waiting to happen. She's ambitious, yearning, independ[...]