Little Men (1940)

Alcott reduced to slapstick

Unfortunately, I got this for my daughter, who is reading virtually all of the classic kids books. We were barely 30 seconds into this when she became angry at how far the film is from the book, making it into a kind of idiotic comedy rather than the subtle social commentary from the original, adding characters not in the book, etc. Moreover, many of the aspects of Jo's situations are changed in ridiculous ways, such as putting their occupancy of the school at risk as a plot device. Also, this film makes a horrible mash of the characters, such as Jo's husband, who comes off as a naive buffoon.

This is a perfectly awful version that betrays the book's depth for comedy effects. Not recommended. March 25, 2008

Big Men More Interesting Than The Little Ones

Major Burdle (played by George Bancroft) was making a comfortable living off a cute swindle when bank robber pal William Denning (played by famous comedian Jack Oakie) shows up and passes along the infant son of another crook. Unable to give the baby to an orphanage, Major Burdle raises renamed Dan 'Burdle' (played by 17-year old Jimmy Lydon) to be an assistant, huckstering a quack drunkeness cure. The authorities want the child in a school; so Major Burdle sends Dan to the Plumfield School, a progressive, private farm school. The Major himself impresses the school owners so much they give him the endowment fund to manage. Dan starts out resistant and hostile. The Major and Denning go off to swindle some more. Then bad things happen, and the movie comes to a suitiable mixed- happy conclusion, with the swindlers showing some character.

The film is in black and white from 1940. Alpha Vidio's picture and sound are clean enough. The best part of the film come from the comic touches of Jack Oakie, with George Bancroft also being amusing. The other characters are not memorable.

There are a couple of schoolyard fight scenes and no sex scenes. Other than Dan in a bathtub, suds to the waist, begging not to be sent away to school, there are no skin shots.

The only extra is the Alpha Video catalogue.
June 12, 2007

Pleasant.

Completely different story than the book by Louisa May Alcott.

It is not a great movie, but I enjoyed it. The school is quaint, on a farm. The story is really about a boy's father, a struggling and charming swindler, in the likes of Long John Silver, searching for new schemes to swindle money. His son, who goes off to school, is a bit embarrassed by his father's career. Nothing exceptional, but pleasant, and keeps your interest.

A good deal, at the cost of a movie-rental, at $3.

The father advertises in the newspaper: "Send $3 and receive a fine quality portrait of President Washington, by a professional artist with exquisite detail".
May 27, 2007

Dissapointing, very dissapointing

Little Men is my favorite book in the world. I was expecting this movie to be cute and sweet just like the book. But instead, I was very very very dissapointed. It was as if they said, "Let's make a movie based on the book 'Little Men'!" and then created their very own story, almost completely different from the book. First of all, they barely even introduced the kids. Second, Dan was supposed to be an orphan, not an adopted kid who was overly attached to his "father" and was sent to Plumfield because the "father" was being bugged to put him in a school. Most of the movie was about a plot that wasn't even in the book!!! How awful can you get? I think someone should completely remake the movie, and actually make it at least the tiniest bit like the book! Right when the movie started, I was dissapointed, but I gave it a fair chace and watched the rest of the movie, but it was TERRIBLE!!! It was hardly recognizable as 'Little Men' except for the names...that was it!!! March 4, 2007

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