The Little Foxes (film)
Encyclopedia
The Little Foxes is a 1941 American drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...

. The screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...

 is based on her 1939 play of the same name
The Little Foxes
The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." Set in a small town in Alabama in...

. Hellman's ex-husband Arthur Kober and Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....

's husband Alan Campbell
Alan Campbell (screenwriter)
Alan K. Campbell was an American writer, actor, and screenwriter. He and his wife, Dorothy Parker, were a popular screenwriting team in Hollywood from 1934 to 1963....

 contributed additional scenes and dialogue.

Plot

The focus is on Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 aristocrat Regina Hubbard Giddens, who struggles for wealth and freedom within the confines of an early 20th century society where a father considered only sons as legal heirs. As a result, her avaricious brothers Benjamin and Oscar are independently wealthy, while she must rely upon her sickly husband Horace for financial support, who has been away undergoing treatment for a severe heart condition.

Having married his much-maligned, alcoholic wife Birdie solely to acquire her family's plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 and its cotton fields, Oscar now wants to join forces with Benjamin to construct a cotton mill
Cotton mill
A cotton mill is a factory that houses spinning and weaving machinery. Typically built between 1775 and 1930, mills spun cotton which was an important product during the Industrial Revolution....

. They approach their sister with their need for an additional $75,000 to invest in the project. Oscar initially proposes a marriage between his son Leo and Regina's daughter Alexandra - first cousins - as a means of getting Horace's money, but Horace and Alexandra are repulsed by the suggestion. When Regina asks Horace outright for the money, he refuses. She tells him his refusal is not important since he will die soon and she is waiting for the day to come. Alexandra overhears the conversation.

Ben and Oscar, aware of Horace's refusal, pressure Leo into stealing Horace's railroad bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

 from the family business to complete the sum needed to construct the mill. After returning home from a trip, Horace informs Regina of the theft and Regina schemes to acquire a larger share of the mill by blackmailing her brothers about the theft. Immediately, Horace states he is changing his will to leave Alexandra everything except the railroad bonds which he will claim he lent to Leo as a loan. Regina is therefore unable to blackmail her brothers anymore, and all she will attain is the repayment of the stolen $75, 000 once the mill is making a profit.

Regina then argues with Horace about her contempt for him, and when he suffers a heart attack she makes no effort to get him his medicine from upstairs. Horace uses the stairs to obtain his medicine but collapses on the way up. The final scenes of the film involve a dying Horace surrounded by family, a doctor and servants who await the chance he may survive. Eventually, Horace dies without anyone knowing his plans, thus allowing Regina to blackmail her brothers into contracting that she will take 75% of the mill's profits or otherwise report Ben and Oscar to the legal authorities. Regina's brothers are left with no choice but to accept her demand.

Alexandra hears this conversation and upon the brother's leaving, she confronts her mother about the nature of her father's death on the stairway. Alexandra states the importance of not idly watching people do evil, and Regina tells her daughter that she cannot do anything to stop her from leaving the household. Alexandra runs away with newspaperman David, and Regina is left wealthy yet completely alone.

Production

The title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon
Song of songs
Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...

 in the King James version of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes."

Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...

 had received critical acclaim for her performance in the 1939 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production of Hellman's play, but director William Wyler, who previously had teamed with Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

 on Jezebel and The Letter
The Letter (1940 film)
The Letter is a 1940 American film noir directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1927 play of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, originally filmed in 1929.-Plot:...

, insisted on casting her in the lead role instead. Producer Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...

 had no reason to argue, since none of Bankhead's films had been box office hits. (Coincidentally, Davis had recreated on film another of Bankhead's Broadway roles, Judith Traherne in Dark Victory
Dark Victory
Dark Victory is a 1939 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan...

.) Initially, Jack L. Warner refused to loan his star to Goldwyn, who then offered the role to Miriam Hopkins
Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...

. When Wyler refused to work with her, Goldwyn resumed negotiations with Warner and finally secured Davis for $385,000. As a contract player at Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

, Davis was earning $3,000 dollars a week, and when she discovered how much Warner had received for her appearance in Foxes, she demanded and ultimately received a share of the payment.

Wyler encouraged Davis to see Bankhead in the play, which she did despite major misgivings. She later regretted doing so because she felt compelled to create a totally different interpretation of the role, one not necessarily suiting the character. Bankead had portrayed Regina as a victim forced to fight for her survival due to the contempt with which her brothers treated her, but Davis played her as a cold, conniving, calculating woman wearing a death mask of white powder she insisted makeup artist Perc Westmore
Perc Westmore
Percival Harry Westmore was a prominent member of the Westmore family of Hollywood make-up artists.-Partial filmography:*The Man Who Played God*The Roaring Twenties...

 create for her.
In her autobiography, A Lonely Life, Davis gave a different version about having to see Bankhead in the play. "A great admirer of hers, I wanted in no way to be influenced by her work. It was Willie's intention that I give a different interpretation of the part. I insisted that Tallulah had played it the only way it could be played. Miss Hellman's Regina was written with such definition that it could only be played one way."

The character of David Hewitt was not in the original play. Hellman created him to add a second sympathetic male to stand alongside Horace among all the venomous Hubbard men.

Davis and Wyler frequently fought during filming, about everything from her appearance (Wyler thought she looked like a Kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...

 performer) to the set design (which Davis thought was far too opulent for a family supposedly struggling financially) to her interpretation of the role (Wyler wanted a softer, more sympathetic Regina). Davis had yielded to Wyler's demands during production of The Letter, but this time she held her ground. Not helping the situation was the fact Los Angeles was experiencing its worst heat wave in years, and the temperature on the soundstages regularly rose above 100 degrees. Davis finally walked off the picture. "It was the only time in my career that I walked out on a film after the shooting had begun," she later recalled. "I was a nervous wreck due to the fact that my favorite and most admired director was fighting me every inch of the way . . . I just didn't want to continue." The actress retreated to her rented house in Laguna Beach and "flatly refused to come back to work. It took a little courage, to say the least. Goldwyn had it in his power to sue me for the entire cost of the production." A week later she returned to the set after rumors she would be replaced by Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

 or Miriam Hopkins began to circulate, although Goldwyn was not about to bear the expense of scrapping all the footage with Davis and refilming the scenes with a new actress. Even though the film was a critical and commercial success and nominated for nine Academy Awards, she and Wyler never worked together again.

The film premiered at Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

reported it was seen by 22,163 persons on its opening day, setting what was then an all-time attendance mark for a normal opening day at the theatre.

In 1946, Hellman wrote the play Another Part of the Forest
Another Part of the Forest
Another Part of the Forest is a 1946 play by Lillian Hellman, a prequel to her 1939 drama The Little Foxes.-Plot synopsis:Set in the fictional town of Bowden, Alabama in June 1880, the plot focuses on the wealthy, ruthless, and innately evil Hubbard family and their rise to prominence...

, a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

 to Foxes. It was adapted for the screen in 1948
Another Part of the Forest (film)
Another Part of the Forest is a 1948 American drama film directed by Michael Gordon. The screenplay by is based on the 1946 play of the same name by Lillian Hellman, which was a prequel to her 1939 drama The Little Foxes.-Plot:...

.

In 2003, the character of Regina Giddens, played by Davis, was ranked #43 on the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

 list of the 50 Best Villains of American Cinema
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...

.

Cast

  • Bette Davis
    Bette Davis
    Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

     as Regina Giddens
  • Herbert Marshall
    Herbert Marshall
    Herbert Marshall , born Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall, was an English actor.His parents were Percy F. Marshall and Ethel May Turner. He graduated from St. Mary's College in Old Harlow, Essex and worked for a time as an accounting clerk...

     as Horace Giddens
  • Teresa Wright
    Teresa Wright
    Teresa Wright was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper...

     as Alexandra Giddens
  • Richard Carlson as David Hewitt
  • Dan Duryea
    Dan Duryea
    Dan Duryea was an American actor, known for roles in film, stage and television.-Early life:Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains Senior High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society...

     as Leo Hubbard
  • Patricia Collinge
    Patricia Collinge
    Patricia Collinge was an Irish American actress. She was born in Dublin, Ireland.-Early life:She was born to F. Channon Collinge and Emmie Russell. Her birth name was Eileen Cecilia Collinge. Collinge was educated first by a visiting governess and then at a girls' school. She took dancing and...

     as Birdie Hubbard
  • Charles Dingle
    Charles Dingle
    Charles Dingle was an American stage and film actor.He was best-known for his role as Ben Hubbard in The Little Foxes and for his role as a senator in the film version of Call Me Madam...

     as Ben Hubbard
  • Carl Benton Reid
    Carl Benton Reid
    Carl Benton Reid was an American actor. He achieved fame on the Broadway stage in 1939 as Oscar Hubbard, one of Regina Giddens's greedy, devious brothers in the play The Little Foxes, and made his film debut reprising his role opposite Bette Davis in the 1941 film version...

     as Oscar Hubbard

Critical reception

In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 observed, "Lillian Hellman's grim and malignant melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 . . . has now been translated to the screen with all its original viciousness intact and with such extra-added virulence as the relentless camera of Director William Wyler and the tensile acting of Bette Davis could impart . . . [It] leaps to the front as the most bitingly sinister picture of the year and as one of the most cruelly realistic character studies yet shown on the screen . . . The test of the picture is the effectiveness with which it exposes a family of evil people poisoning everything they touch. And this it does spectacularly. Mr. Wyler, with the aid of Gregg Toland, has used the camera to sweep in the myriad small details of a mauve decadent household and the more indicative facets of the many characters. The focus is sharp, the texture of the images hard and realistic. Individual scenes are extraordinarily vivid and compelling . . . The Little Foxes will not increase your admiration for mankind. It is cold and cynical. But it is a very exciting picture to watch in a comfortably objective way, especially if you enjoy expert stabbing-in-the-back."

Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

said, "From starring Bette Davis down the line to the bit roles portrayed by minor Negroes the acting is well nigh flawless . . . Marshall turns in one of his top performances . . . On top of the smooth pace, Wyler has handled every detail with an acutely dramatic touch."

Time Out London said, "Lillian Hellman's play . . . now creaks audibly. But you are unlikely ever to see a better version than this, caressed by Gregg Toland's deep focus camerawork, embalmed by Wyler's direction and Goldwyn's sumptuous production values, galvanised by some superlative performances. The sulphurous Davis, her face a livid mask as she dispenses icy venom behind feline purrs, outdoes herself to provide the proceedings with a regally vicious centre."

Nominations

  • Academy Award for Best Picture
    Academy Award for Best Picture
    The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

  • Academy Award for Best Director
  • Academy Award for Best Actress
    Academy Award for Best Actress
    Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

     (Bette Davis)
  • Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
    Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
    Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

     (Patricia Collinge and Teresa Wright)
  • Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay
    Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
    The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...

  • Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring for a Dramatic Film
    Academy Award for Original Music Score
    The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

  • Academy Award for Best Film Editing
    Academy Award for Film Editing
    The Academy Award for Film Editing is one of the annual awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Nominations for this award are closely correlated with the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since 1981, every film selected as Best Picture has also been nominated for the Film Editing...

  • Academy Award for Best Art Direction
    Academy Award for Best Art Direction
    The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...

     (Stephen Goosson
    Stephen Goosson
    Stephen Goosson was an Academy Award-winning American film set designer.Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Goosson was an architect in Detroit before starting his film career as art director for producer Lewis J. Selznick, and films for Fox Film Corporation such as New Movietone Follies of 1930...

    , Howard Bristol
    Howard Bristol
    Howard Bristol was an American set decorator. He was nominated for nine Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction. He worked on 56 films between 1936 and 1968.-Selected filmography:Bristol was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:...

    )

External links

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