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The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 25 Apr 2014 13:19:00
The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

The Little Foxes (1941)
DVD5 | ISO | NTSC 4:3 | Cover + DVD Scan | 01:56:17 | 3,87 Gb
Audio: #1 English AC3 2.0/1.0 @ 192 Kbps; #2 French, #3 Spanish - AC3 1.0 @ 192 Kbps (each)
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Genre: Drama, Romance

Director: William Wyler
Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright

From a politically left leaning Lillian Hellman penned novel-turned-film THE LITTLE FOXES (1941) is a hidden triumph of Hollywood. A harsh, desperate look at a family living in the deep south circa 1900 plagued by deceit, greed and selfishness. Master director William Wyler once again crafts an engaging cinematic gem with an all-star cast and powerful themes. Bette Davis portrayed one of the most despicable roles of her career. Teresa Wright plays her daughter, who, as the saving grace of the film, is able to distinguish her villainous mothers traits and seeks to distance herself before she too is caught up in its cancerous influences. Masterpiece is appropriate to describe the subtle interplay or character traits, many of whom are likeable until their hidden agenda is determined. Add into this mix, the extraordinary deep-focus cinematography of Gregg Toland and you have a film worthy of multiple repeat viewings.

IMDB - Nominated for 9 Oscars
Wikipedia

Time has proven Bette Davis right–no one could top Tallulah Bankhead's Broadway portrayal of the vituperative Regina Giddens, the central figure of Lillian Hellman's now creaking, but still compelling Deep South potboiler. During filming, William Wyler was often heard to say, "We'll have to get Bankhead." Would that he had. Davis, in an impulsive stampede to make the role her own, took an opposite track to the character. Or perhaps Wyler did; every Davis bio tells it differently. Either way, it's wrong. In her rice powder, with her mouth drawn into a tiny, hard line (it makes her look more beaked and birdlike than ever) she loses the hothouse-flower sensuality that Bankhead brought to her manipulations. And it was precisely that certain quality that justified Regina's ability to manipulate men to high heaven in the turn of the century South.

The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

FOXES tells the story of the Hubbards (whose exploits are also detailed in ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST [1948], from Hellman's prequel), as greedy a bunch as ever drank mint juleps. Regina's brothers (Dingle and Reid) ask her to persuade her husband Horace (Marshall) to supply the rest of the cash they need to build a cotton mill. Milking her position for all the leverage possible, Regina sends her daughter (Wright) to fetch Horace, recovering from a heart attack at a Baltimore sanitarium. The weakened man, however, proves a bigger hurdle than anyone had bargained for.

The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

This is the third and last time Davis worked with Wyler, following the triumphs of JEZEBEL and THE LETTER. The furious battles enacted by the two on FOXES are Hollywood legend–a sad farewell to a legendary collaboration. Perhaps the rest of the principals didn't cotton to Davis's tantrums (having grown accustomed to Bankhead's); except for Wright, in her film debut, they look like wolves successfully moving in on her acting territory. Collinge, in fact, almost steals the movie. The other newcomer, Duryea, does move in; it's overkill that needed slapping down.

The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

We are not, however, discounting FOXES's impressive technical achievement. Many of the sequences directed by Wyler and shot by cinematographer Toland (famed for his deep-focus work in CITIZEN KANE) have been hailed by film scholars, especially during the memorable murder scene (featuring Davis's Kabuki look). Orry-Kelly's costumes for Davis are either great or wrong. Somehow FOXES feels embalmed instead of lived; still we enjoy the drama done aloud.
TV Guide
The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

Lilliam Hellman adapts it from her own hit 1939 Broadway play. It's a bitingly grim film about the destruction of a Southern family caused by greed and the bad effects from American capitalism. Tallulah Bankhead starred in the stage version but producer Samuel Goldwyn got Bette Davis, under contract to Warner Brothers, to star in the film version by initiating a studio swap with Warner's by loaning out their contract player Gary Cooper, so he can appear in their Sergeant York. William Wyler ("Roman Holiday"/"The Westerner"/"The Children's Hour") ably directs (he had to put up with a Davis insisting she play the part without compromise, which turned out to be a good move) and Gregg Toland provides the stunningly beautiful photography. Teresa Wright makes her acting debut as Davis' daughter, as does Patricia Collinge (holdover from Broadway) as the sweet but tipsy and disillusioned Birdie Hubbard–the wealthy wife of the Charles Dingle character Ben Hubbard.

The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

It's set in 1900 in the Deep South, in a small-town where the enterprising carpet-bagger Hubbard family run the town's best businesses. Industrialist William Marshall (Russell Hicks), from Chicago, visits the Hubbard family and says he plans to build a cotton mill here. Regina Giddens (Bette Davis) is a shrewd businesswoman who is married to a dispirited dying but ethical man, Horace Giddens (Herbert Marshall), the president of the local bank. He opposes the mill, saying it will ruin the town by exploiting the poor, and refuses to give her the $75,000 needed to invest in it. But Regina's odious brothers Ben (Charles Dingle) and Oscar Hubbard (Carl Benton Reid) hunger for more wealth and drink a toast to their guest as investors. She doesn't care if her husband lives or dies, as she so desperately wants to inherit the family's entire fortune and will do anything to make her sick dream come true. For starters she tries to arrange the marriage of her nice daughter Alexandra (Teresa Wright) to the slimy and dim-witted Leo (Dan Duryea), Oscar's bank teller son, in order to get the investment money. Oscar will give her the money just to get his shiftless son married. But Alexandra doesn't bite. Leo is pushed by dad into stealing Horace's bonds (worth $90,000) that's kept in a safe deposit box. Regina finds out about this and uses it to blackmail the brothers into giving her a big piece of the cotton mill action.

The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

Regina, because of her greed, slyly sticks her scheming knives in her own deceitful brothers' backs and, to top that, callously neglects to give her good husband his pills when he is dying of a heart attack (the film's most memorable heartless scene). The cold-hearted Regina is left alone when, in the end, her virtuous daughter, the one person she cares about in this world, calls her out as "one who eats the earth." She then elopes with nice-guy newspaperman David Hewitt (Richard Carlson), son of the town's poor seamstress, and deserts Regina.

Davis is at her theatrical best, as she hams it up in her unsympathetic icy villainess role as the one who poisons everything she touches.
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
The Little Foxes (1941) [ReUp]

Special Features: Theatrical trailer

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