Why didn't I ever know that Christian Bale played Laurie in Little Women (1994). I was so shocked when his scene came on with Jo at the dance and I went holy crap! like a thousand friggin times. I would have never known if I hadn't decided to watch the 1994 version of Little Women to see how it differed from the 1949 version that I loved so much.

Christian Bale looks so much the same here bit his voice...hasn't broken. Its the voice of a teenage boy just entering adulthood and its so incredibly weird to see him with longer wavy hair and a higher pitched voice, but of course he was 20 years old then. But he looks exactly the sane, doesn't he?

Winona Ryder, who played Jo March wasn't as good as June Allyson in the 1949 version. Winona was more...gentle and feminine and didn't really portray the feisty and hot headed Jo in the film. I haven't finished watching the entire movie but I think I still prefer the 1949 version, with June and Janet Leigh Elizabeth Taylor (who played Meg and Amy respectively). Oh, and I just remembered that when I was in Los Angeles one of the very reasons I had wanted to visit the Westwood Village Memorial Park was just so I could visit the graves of Janet Leigh and Keanu Reeve's girlfriend and their daughter. It took me about a good half hour to find them because the place was enormous and I had to walk up to each gravestone one by one and check the names, but I remember my heart stopping when I saw the names Ava Archer Reeves and Jennifer Syme, the stillborn daughter and girlfriend of Keanu Reeves and I just started sobbing.

And I also visited:

- Marilyn Monroe
- Dean Martin (one of my favorite jazz singers)
- Janet Leigh
- Farrah Fawcett (who played Jill Munroe in the original Charlie's Angels)
- Eva Gabor
- Elizabeth Montgomery (the original Samatha Stephens in Bewitched, which I loved so much when I was younger)
- Hugh Hefner (who technically is still alive but has reserved the site next to Marilyn for himself), just to name a few.

I also did quite a few other names that I didn't recognize, and it was only after I looked it up online that I learned they were actors, models, writers, directors and other well-know individuals in the 1960s and 70s. The Park was a sad and beautiful place at the same time and it just makes you reflect upon life. I left a quarter (25 cents) on top of Dean Martin's plaque, alongside many others who have done the same, as a tribute to the man who, when was I was 13, was the only man who managed to sing me to sleep after a long terrible and hard day.

So anyway I watched Little Women (1949) when I was 10 after reading the children's version of Little Women and it has been one of my favorite movies ever since. I was distraught when my mum threw out the DVD because it had too many scratches and we couldn't get through 10 minutes of the film without it stopping. But yaye SM found the film for me and passed it to me the previous week and I watched it last night again and it was just as beautiful and magical as it was when I first watched it 11 years ago.