Little Women (1978)

Little Women really seems to be a story that has to be re-filmed every decade if only to give that generation’s group of young actresses a chance to portray a classic, female-centric story. As fitting for a made for television film, this version has the sisters being portrayed by some well-known television actresses of the time: Meredith Baxter, Susan Dey, and Eve Plumb. Ann Dusenberry, whom I’ve never seen in anything else, as Amy is the weakest link of the bunch. Her accent is bizarre for the New England setting and her characterization is shrill even for normal Amy standards. I always find it weird when a production doesn’t actually bother having a burn mark on Jo’s dress, but I do like how hacked off her hair looked here and that it was shown to re-grow over the following years. It’s barebones, but certainly holds up as well as any of the other editions I’ve seen.