Radio review - Lux - "Little Women" (1950) ***

Several of the cast from MGM's film repeat their screen performances - June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien and Janet Leigh, but no Elizabeth Taylor, which is presumably why the part of Amy is so truncated. It's serviceable enough, with everyone trying - the only one really out of his league is Lawford, who doesn't have a strong enough voice for radio. Even though this is a story for kids it's very adult - Allyson and Lawford may be childhood soul mates but don't get together and he winds up with someone better looking and shallower, which happens; O'Brien dies; it's set against the background of war.

At the end O'Brien makes a crack about hoping the fact she and Lawford came out to Hollywood together from New York "doesn't wind up in the columns" - she was 13 at the time but knowing Lawford that didn't make her necessarily safe. Allyson jokes about her upcoming movie with husband Dick Powell.