Harry Beresford | Through the Shattered Lens

(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday. Will she make it? Keep following the site to find out!)

Based on the beloved classic by Louisa May Alcott, the 1933 film Little Women tells the story of the March sisters. Growing up in Concord, Massachusetts during the Civil War, they wait — with their mother, Marmee (Spring Byington) — for their father to return from serving as a chaplain in the Union Army. There are four sisters. The oldest, Meg (Frances Dee) is a responsible and practical (which is a nice way of saying that someone is boring) seamstress. The youngest, Beth (Joan Bennett) is beautiful but selfish. Meanwhile, saintly Beth (Jean Parker) spends her time playing a severely out-of-tune piano.

And then there’s Jo (Katharine Hepburn). Jo is just a year younger than Meg and … well, basically, she’s Katharine Hepburn. She’s an independent-minded intellectual who dreams of being a writer and who isn’t interested in conforming to society’s expectations. She’s head-strong and occasionally, she’s too stubborn for her own good. But she’s also kind-hearted and loves her sisters, even if she does sometimes disagree with them. We follow Jo as she rejects one potential suitor, poor earnest Laurie (Douglass Montgomery) and discovers another when she meets the older Prof. Behar (Paul Lukas). We also watch as a family tragedy brings her and her sisters back together.

In fact, Katharine Hepburn is so perfect as Jo that it throws the rest of this adaptation out of balance. So totally does Hepburn dominate this film that it’s hard not to feel that the other March sisters end up getting a short shrift. To a certain extent, it does make sense. Jo is the lead character and the story is largely told through her point of view. But, for someone who enjoyed reading Alcott’s novel, it’s hard not to be disappointed. I mean, Jo is great but some of us may have related more to one of the other March sisters. Like Beth, for instance.

Another problem with this version of Little Women is that the March sisters are all supposed to be teenagers and yet, they’re played by actresses who were in their 20s. For instance, 23 year-old Joan Bennett played Amy, who is supposed to be only 12 years old when we first see her. By casting actresses who were already clearly adults, it makes t difficult for the film to work as a coming-of-age story.

(Personally, my favorite version of Little Women — and the first one that I ever saw — was the 1994 version that starred Winona Ryder as Jo. Even though Ryder was clearly the film’s star, the other three March sisters were all given time to make an impression as well and, as a result, they felt like a real family. Speaking as the youngest of four sisters, there was a lot about that movie to which I could relate. Add to that, Christian Bale made for a far more interesting Laurie than Douglass Montgomery.)

With all that said, it bears repeating that Katharine Hepburn is absolutely perfect as Jo and, if you’re a Hepburn fan (and who isn’t), this is one of her essential films. It helps that she was directed by George Cukor, the director who was responsible for some of Hepburn’s best performances. The rest of the movie doesn’t quite live up to Hepburn’s performance but she was such a great talent that it almost doesn’t matter.

Little Women was nominated for best picture. However, it lost to Cavalcade.

The title of the 1937 film They Won’t Forget works on many levels.

It describes the reaction of a small Southern town, following the brutal murder of teenager Mary Clay (played, in her film debut, by Lana Turner). The town won’t forget Mary and they won’t forget the terror caused by her murder. They also won’t forget that local teacher Robert Hale (Edward Norris) was accused of the crime.

The district attorney, Andrew Griffin (Claude Rains), hopes that the people of his state won’t forget his efforts to see Griffin convicted of that crime. Griffin wants to be elected to the U.S. Senate and he knows that the high profile case could be just what his career needs.

The Governor (Paul Everton) knows that, if he steps into the case and acts on his suspicion that Hale is innocent, the voters of his state will never forget. And they certainly won’t be willing to forgive.

And, on a larger level, the title lets us know that the South and the North will never forget the Civil War and the conflict between the two regions. The film opens with three elderly veterans of the Confederate Army, preparing to march in the town’s annual Confederate Memorial Day parade and admitting to each other that, after all these years, it’s difficult to remember much about the war other than the fact that they’re proud that they fought in it.

It’s while the rest of the town is busy watching Griffin and the governor ride in the parade that Mary Clay is murdered. It’s easy to assume that Hale was the murderer because Hale was one of the few townspeople not to go to the parade. You see, Hale is originally from New York City. When he’s accused of murder, it’s equally easy for Griffin and tabloid reporter William A. Brock (Allyn Joslyn) to convince the town people to blame this Northern intruder for both the murder of Mary Clay and, symbolically, for all of the post-Civil War struggles of the South itself.

Meanwhile, up North, Hale is seen as a victim of the South’s intolerance. A high-profile lawyer (Otto Kruger) is sent down to defend Hale but, as quickly becomes clear, everyone involved in the case is more interested in refighting the Civil War than determining the guilt or innocence of Andrew Hale.

They Won’t Forget is a hard-hitting and fascinating look at politics, justice, and paranoia. It’s all the more interesting because it’s based on a true story. In 1913, a 13 year-old girl named Mary Phagan was murdered in Atlanta. Leo Frank was accused and convicted of the murder. (In Frank’s case, he was born in Texas but was also Jewish and had previously lived in New York before moving to Atlanta, all of which made him suspicious in the eyes of many.) On the word of a night watchmen, who many believe was the actual murderer of Mary Phagan, Leo Frank was convicted and sentence to death. After spending days reviewing all of the evidence and growing convinced that Frank had been wrongly convicted, Georgia’s governor committed an act of political suicide by commuting Frank’s sentence to life imprisonment. Leo Frank was subsequently lynched and the man who had prosecuted the case against him was subsequently elected governor.

Well-acted and intelligently directed, They Won’t Forget is probably one of the best films of which few people have heard. Fortunately, it shows up fairly regularly on TCM and, the next time that it does, be sure to watch. It’s a great film that you won’t easily forget.