The Little Foxes
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.48 You Save: $7.50 (50%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Little Foxes
Movie Review: A Gloriously Atmospheric Moral Fable
Summary: 5 Stars
Ben and Oscar Hubbard (Charles Dingle and Carl Benton Reid), their sister Regina Giddens (Bette Davis) and Oscar?s son Leo (Dan Duryea) are not nice people. They are a family of profiteering entrepreneurs who have grown to prominence in a small southern town, grabbing the assets of its oldest aristocratic family through Oscar?s cynical marriage to Birdie (Patricia Collinge) who has since been driven to alcoholism by his abusive lovelessness. Ben and Oscar?s latest plot is to do a big deal with a business bigshot from Chicago who is keen to set up a new cotton mill with them on the understanding that the wages will be extremely low. Ben and Oscar are keen. Regina is keen. But Regina can?t come into the deal in her own right: she must persuade her husband to do so. And her husband Horace (Herbert Marshall) is a very different kind of man from her brothers. To complicate matters further he is dying. Meanwhile her daughter Alexandra (Teresa Wright) is getting close to idealistic young journalist David Hewitt (Richard Carlson) and, not, as her scheming relatives intend, to the useless and corrupt young Leo. This 1941 movie is adapted from a Lillian Hellman?s classic 1939 play of the same year. The dates make it closer enough where we are - an era when the overwhelming political issue in the USA was whether to join a European war against Hitler. It?s not hard to see from this where Hellman?s sympathies lie. The movie?s theme is the division of humanity three ways: the bad people, the good people who fight the bad people and the good people who just sit by and watch the bad people as they destroy the world; and the clearly articulated thought is that, for good people, sitting by and watching, is not, ultimately, an option.
The movie is a classic and richly deserves to be. The performances are remarkable: notably Davis at her most magnificently malign, Dingle splendidly hateful as her cynical and brutal brother, Duryea as the good-for-nothing Leo, Marshall as the profoundly decent but physically desperately weak Horace and Collinge as the pathetically wrecked Birdie who adumbrates horrifically what, if they are not resisted, her unspeakable relatives might eventually contrive to turn the charming young Alexandra into. Wyler directs brilliantly and the camerawork by Gregg Toland is astonishing in its use of shadowy, long, deep-focus shots. The oppressive atmosphere of hostile emotions running far too high in the southern heat is captured to perfection.
There is certainly a degree of simple-mindedness in the moral landscape of the film. The characters divide rather neatly into two sorts: very good, gentle, decent people and irredeemably evil people. There are no shades of grey, just jet black and lustrous white. And of course the world isn?t that black and white. But perhaps insofar as the play is about the issues that World War II was fought over, that is an excusable fault; for those issues, if any ever have been, really were that black and white.
Movie Review: One of the True Greats of Cinema
Summary: 5 Stars
The first thing you notice at the end of 'The Little Foxes' is that, for a change, Ms. Davis' performance hasn't overshadowed all those around her. Although touted as the main character, Davis' portrayal of Regina is a cleverly understated performance, lacking almost all of the trademark Davis moves (the constant cigarette, the acidic voice) that we've come to know and love. She plays it down, to huge success, and gives what is one of her best ever performances in this 1941 production of Lilian Hellman's smart, insightful play.The titular 'Little Foxes' are Regina and her greedy, scheming brothers, Ben (Charles Dingle) and Oscar (Carl Benton Reid). The Hubbard Boys are from a once-wealthy family, fallen on hard times in a Southern community where wealth and family prestige are interchangable. They each need a share of $75,000 dollars to bring a lucrative Yankee cotton mill to their town, and will stop at nothing to get it. Regina, who has married money, and possessing an intelligence and drive that both of her brothers lack, fails to legitimately get her share of the capital from her ailing husband Horace (Herbert Marshall). Under increasing pressure from their Yankee investor, the Hubbards beg, borrow and steal for the money, at the risk and ultimate destruction of all those around them.
Bette Davis is, in 'The Little Foxes', simply one of several excellent performances given by a highly-talented ensemble cast. Charles Dingle and Carl Benton Reid are superb as the Hubbard Boys, both being highly individual characters while retaining familial similarities. Ben Hubbard is non-confrontational and winning, whereas Oscar is quick to anger and wades in with all guns blazing. They're both as greedy as all get-out, though, and we see this in their private exchanges with each other, Regina, and Leo Hubbard (played as comedy-without-sentimentality by an excellent, young Dan Duryea), the dullest nephew since time began.
Herbert Marshall as Regina's long-suffering husband Horace gives a performance with sympathy and pathos. He is a beacon of unselfishness and decency in a fog of money-grabbing. His final scenes with Regina are simultaneously touching and tense, thanks to Marshall's superior talents.
Bette as Regina Hubbard is something of a revelation. Like I mentioned, she's abandoned almost all of the usual Davis idiosyncrasies to give a performance as impressive as it is hard-edged. As the flinty, cold, manipulative Regina, she excels through her considerable talents as a versatile actress. The contrast between her scenes with Horace and their daughter Alexandra is strong, and an excellent illustration of an over-ambitious woman's mind. The remainder of the supporting cast is strong, with a notable mention going to Patricia Collinge as Oscar's abused, alcoholic wife Birdie - an excellent performance in what could so easily have been a role played for sentimentality.
Direction is top-notch; William Wyler's last collaboration with Bette Davis is arguably the best, with some sweeping vistas of the Giddens mansion interior, and beautiful lighting to complement the gothic, amoral tone of the film. What is essentially a one-room stage play is kept moving at a fast pace in Wyler's capable hands, never slowing or boring the viewer with cliches.
The transfer to DVD isn't the best, but certainly above average for a 63 year-old movie. It doesn't impede on the movie in any way, and what we have in 'The Little Foxes' is a chilling masterpiece that every film fan should own.
Excellent.
Movie Review: LOUSY TRANSFER OF A BETTE DAVIS CLASSIC
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Little Foxes" is based on the play by Lillian Hellman. It stars Bette Davis as Regina, a ruthless matriarch in a Southern family steeped in deceit, fraud and betrayal. Regina wants to be rich again and to this end she is willing to destroy her two brothers, sell her only daughter in marriage to her first cousin and kill her first husband to court a new love. This is one tough and classy dame! Teresa Wright is ideally cast as Regina's daughter. TRANSFER: YUCK! YUCK! YUCK! Although the print shows little signs of age related artifacts, nothing can excuse the edge enhancement, shimmering of fine details and aliasing that is inherent in nearly every scene. It really is distracting, especially as a lot of the key scenes are played out on a winding banister with ornate spindles that shake and shimmy all over the screen - enough to give one a small headache. The audio is mono and very nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: A Theatrical trailer that looks as though it was fed through a meat grinder.
BOTTOM LINE: This isn't one to spend your money on!
Movie Review: Entirely worthy of serious movie buffs
Summary: 4 Stars
Here's another classic from the era when you had to know how to act to be in the movies, and dialogue was aimed at adults rather than dumbed down. The theme -- clash of values, family ties vs. avarice, just desserts -- is as old as time and we have all see it many times before. But strong and realistic character development, engaging drama, sophisticated plot and subplots, and effective period reenactment (South, circa 1900), gave it a new and compelling spin and made me want to follow it through closely to its conclusion. Pick this winner, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams' plays, when you want an evening of serious entertainment reflective of the quality that once built the industry now since fallen into gross mediocrity.Movie Review: NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE....
Summary: 5 Stars
William Wyler's film of Lillian Hellman's play is a fine old example of masterful filmmaking. Scripted by Hellman, it tells of the ultimate greedy Southern clan circa 1900. Thankfully most of the leading players came from the play with the exception of Bette Davis who assumed the role of Regina---originally played by Tallulah Bankhead---and she is magnificent. Regina is embroiled with her brothers in a greedy and corrupt get-rich-quick scheme to open a cotten mill and needs the final third of the money to come from her ailing husband (a grand Herbert Marshall) who is opposed to the plan with good reason: he's honest and sensible. The brothers are cold, evil and despicable. But Regina is all that and more---she's smarter and greedier. Since Marshall won't give her the money, she withholds his heart medicine and allows him to die knowing she'll get the money now that he's dead. This is an unforgettable scene and there are many in this outstanding film. In contrast to the evil characters, there's Teresa Wright in her film debut as Alexandra---Regina's daughter---who represents innocence and hope and the marvelous Patricia Collinge (from the play) as the sweet, alcoholic and abused sister-in-law Birdie who represents the painful trampling of gentility by corruption and greed. Her performance is heartbreakingly good. Beautiful b&w photography and the recreation of small town Southern life are right on target here. And Davis is at her best as the wicked Regina. She performs feats of acting magic that no other actress could have accomplished in this role. "The Little Foxes" is a must see and a vintage classic that garnered 9 Oscar nominations for 1941. It deserved every one of them. Excellent DVD treatment from MGM as well. A collector's item.