Little Foxes (1941)

Birdie is the only likable and sympathetic character in the entire film

It IS The Little Foxes!

Old, closed thread regarding the film.

You just learned this Op?

R3 Thank you, but a thread from 2017 does not show up in the search bar.

RicksReel gonna go pissant You’ve been warned

RicksReel is just fine, thanks! Today's Hubbard family is the Trumps!

More like the Bushes.

Regina was Babs.

They reminded me of my grandfather and his brothers.

Eric Trump is Leo... I could see Melania letting Donald choke on a cheeseburger.

I love the movie, though Richard Carlson’s character is extraneous and completely unnecessary, and Teresa Wright’s performance is excessively passive and insipid —she never suggests a nice girl who is smart enough to wake up to how her world works.

Davis and Patricia Collinge are fantastic. FYI, the outfit Davis is wearing in OP’s pic (the outfit she wears during the unforgettable scene where Davis watches her hisband die) wasn’t a quiet gray or blue-gray. ut was a brilliant shade of puce.

pquote] ut was a brilliant shade of puce.

Any relation to Muriel

[quote] ut was a brilliant shade of puce.

Any relation to Muriel?

[quote]brilliant shade of puce

I don't tend to think of puce as brilliant, r11.

Well it is, if I knew how, I would post a link tothe color photo I came across though you might be able to Google it.

You could also say the color was a brilliant fuschia or mauve.

ALL OF THEM FOXES...

R11 it was black. And white.

DL Fav Tallulah Bankhead originated the role on Broadway

You don’t say

Where the title comes from.

The Bible verse about "little foxes" is found in Song of Solomon 2:15. It says, "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom,"

Some interpretations say at the end “for our vines have tender grapes,” which is the title of another movies.

What did you think of it, OP? Recommend it?

[quote] DL Fav Tallulah Bankhead originated the role on Broadway

[quote] You don’t say —We know. We are the DL.

As R12 of the below-linked thread wrote, "OP has the taste of a 18 year old discovering 'culture' for the first time."

Thanks, OP--I never heard of this movie. And who is this Bette Davis? Can you educate me further on her? Anything else you've just discovered that you want to share?

R24, he also went on a date one afternoon with an Indian guy that went super well!

R23 see R24 ye Gads!! 😵‍💫

LOL^

According to r3, no one is allowed to discuss anything that has EVER, EVER appeared on Datalounge before as a topic--even if was discussed eight years ago!

Patricia Neal won a Tony for playing young Regina Hubbard.

[quote]DL Fav Tallulah Bankhead originated the role on Broadway

Tallulah also originated Bette Davis's role in "Dark Victory" on Broadway, prompting Tallu to once remark of Bette, "She does ALL my movies for me," in a tone that suggested Bette was doing her a huge favor.

Patricia Collinge is the best thing in the film version.

Bette Davis just isn't right for the part of Regina, somehow., She's too rigid and tight.

Heckie...

I always thought Wyler and Davis peaked with "The Letter" the year before "The Little Foxes."

R2 said it.

Eileen was always the best.

Lillian Hellman supposedly based the characters on her own family but Lillian Hellman lied like a rug so who knows how much is accurate.

[quote] Bette Davis just isn't right for the part of Regina, somehow., She's too rigid and tight.

Nonsense, R31. In fact, Davis was directed by Wyler to be emotionally withholding and she fought him because she felt she felt she was imitating what Bankhead did on the stage, but her screen histrionics would have been wrong for this. He kept her in check, and it resulted in one of her best performances. And R33, you thought wrong.

Another Part of the Forest is great too. It’s the prequel to The Little Foxes. It doesn’t seem to get discussed much.

Ann Blyth excels as young Regina in Another Bitch in the Forest!

Gay composer Marc Blitzstein turned TLF into Grand Opera in 1949: "Regina", and it's fabulous!

Patricia Collinge is such an underrated talent today. She really should be remembered among the best character actresses of golden age Hollywood.

Once again, Bette Davis was no Tallulah Bankhead.

No one gave head better than Tallulah. Except for me.

[quote] Nonsense, [R31]. In fact, Davis was directed by Wyler to be emotionally withholding and she fought him because she felt she felt she was imitating what Bankhead did on the stage, but her screen histrionics would have been wrong for this. He kept her in check, and it resulted in one of her best performances.

She herself didn't think so, and she and Wyler never worked together again because they were so unhappy working together on the film.

Almost no reputable film critics consider it among her best performances.

Her best maleeup—until Jane

make-up

😱

[quote]Almost no reputable film critics consider it among her best performances.

Bullshit, r44.

Patricia Collinge was also wonderful in the Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt.

[R11] Richard Carlson's character David was created for the film. He wasn't in the stage play. I guess they wanted to give Theresa Wright's character someone to escape from her family with and a possible love interest. Kind of a thankless part and not much to work with. But the scene when he knocks around nasty Leo is satisfying. Would've loved to see the revival in 1981. Liz was okay as Regina but Maureen Stapleton was apparently amazing as poor Birdie.

Stockard was very good

Frances Conroy played Birdie in that same production.

I was a little darling —where’s my prize?

Wyler was one of the greatest directors of all time.

Foxy, too.

I’m so good. What about you!

[quote] She herself didn't think so, and she and Wyler never worked together again because they were so unhappy working together on the film.

Till her dying day she said Wyler was the greatest director she ever had. Her opinion about her own performances cannot in good faith be considered objective.

Her opinion about her own performances cannot in good faith be considered objective.…

…because it’s the very definition of subjective. Duh!

Annie...

The whole movie could suck (wich it doesnt) but the scene where she watches her husband die is a mastercraft of acting .

PS. Bette was a big fan of Anne.

When they did it recently in NYC, who was the better Regina: Laura Linney or Cynthia Nixon?

[quote] Her opinion about her own performances cannot in good faith be considered objective.…

[quote]…because it’s the very definition of subjective. Duh!

As opposed to other people's opinions, like your own?

They were both creditable in both roles, but Linney had the edge with Regina and Nixon was a rather perfect Birdie, and in fact won the Tony for that performance.

R60 neither. Weak tea.

Marg...

She won a Tony for Rabbit Hole, too. Mediocrity at its best.

I wholeheartedly agree with R47: bullshit, R44.

For a Hollywood film made under the studio system of 1940, all the period details, including costuming, hair and makeup, are extraordinarily effective and relatively authentic. And very rare for the time.

Not rare. Just well done.

And deep focus! It was contemporaneous with the filming of Citizen Kane. There was crossover in cast and crew.

[quote]And very rare for the time.

Not rare at all for prestige pictures, r67.

I love how in that bit at R59 Herbert Marshall goes off frame behind Regina and then his double come in and crawls up the staircase out of focus which Marshall couldn't have done that with his wooden leg.

[quote] I wholeheartedly agree with [R47]: bullshit, [R44].

Who can argue with such airtight reasoning?

My mother’s go-to aphorism: Don’t make fun of cripples.

That’s for you R70

Nobody was making fun of anyone.

R71, the lack of reasoning began with R44, who pulled out of their ass the notion that this was not, in fact, one of Davis's acclaimed performances, even though she was nominated for an Oscar. Virtually no critic has asserted that this was not one of her best pictures.

I saw an excellent production of The Little Foxes at a theater near Rancho Mirage in the mid1980s with Barry Youngfellow as Regina, Beth Howland as Birdie and Tammy Lauren in the Ann Blyth role. It was a revelation!

[quote]with Barry Youngfellow as Regina

with *and Barrie Youngfellow as Jan* as Regina

Fixed it for you, r75.

Ann Blyth? Do you mean Teresa Wright?

R77, I wondered the same thing. Apparently Blyth was in a prequel according to Wikipedia.

[quote]Apparently Blyth was in a prequel

Not *a prequel, r78, *the* prequel.

The heart attack "scene'" splendidly imitated on General Hospital with the characters of Tracy and Edward...with a twist!

Blythe shoved Barrie aside in the middle of Act II—audiences loved it!

R81. I heard that Bonnie Franklin wanted the part of Regina but dropped out when they cut her tap number during the heart attack scene.

Her taps were counter to his heartbeat, r82. It was very effective.

Every bit as good as The Little Foxes is 1940s The Letter starring Bette Davis directed by William Wyler. It has an 84 Metascore

Bette Davis gave one of her best and nastiest performances in Wyler's stylishly sordid 1940 romantic murder-mystery from W. Somerset Maugham's story. [02 May 2008, p.C5]- Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

In William Wyler’s richly torrid melodrama The Letter, Davis unsurprisingly mesmerizes as a duplicitous murderess pleading self-defense. What is surprising is how, with the help of a good, sympathetic director, she doesn’t play the role in all-out pit viper mode. Instead, Davis reveals something vulnerable and pitiable. - Entertainment Weekly

It is an evil tale, plotted with an eye to its torturing effects. And Mr. Wyler has directed the film along those lines. With infinite care, he has created the dark, humid atmosphere of the rubber country. At a slow, inexorable pace, he has accumulated the details. -The New York Times Bosley Crowther

Davis gives what is very likely the best study of female sexual hypocrisy in film history. Cold and proper, she yet manages to suggest the passion of a woman who'd kill a man for trying to leave her. - The New Yorker Pauline Kael

Metascores for 85 year old movies = idiotic. We don’t need a number to tell us if there considered classics.

they’re *

^^^ take your meds

r69, please name a few other "prestige pictures" of that era in which the ladies' costuming, hair and makeup are as authentic as they are in The Little Foxes.

And I do hope you don't believe Gone with the Wind is one of them.

Off hand, I'll give you The Heiress, but that's mostly because they didn't need to glamourize Olivia de Haviland.

Citizen Kane

How Green Was My Valley

Rebecca

The Maltese Falcon

The Sea Hawk

r90, you'd better take a closer look at Maureen O'Hara's hair and makeup in that Welsh mining town.

That’s just from the same year’s list of BP nominees

Rebecca and The Maltese Falcon are contemporary films, unlike The Little Foxes. Do you understand the challenge?

The challenge was “ name a few other "prestige pictures" of that era in which the ladies' costuming, hair and makeup are as authentic as they are in The Little Foxes. “

I met that challenge, in spades.

What is your definition of authentic, r97?

My problem with Davis' Regina is that it's hard to imagine she would have any success becoming the mistress of financier William Marshall as she is made up to look very unattractive.

When you see photos of Bankhead from the stage version you can tell she could be seductive. With Davis you can't. Granted, Regina could fail to seduce Marshall in the end, but with Bankhead you could imagine he'd at least be tempted.

The other Reginas I've seen (Stockard Channing, Laura Linney) were also believable in this regard. Unfortunately, the production with Channing was not successful (she was disappointing). I liked Linney a lot.

The Regina I wish I'd seen was Anne Bancroft in a 1960s production with George C. Scott, Richard Dysart, E. G. Marshall, and Margaret Leighton as Birdie. Directed by Mike Nichols. What a cast.

[quote]Patricia Collinge was also wonderful in the Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt.

I was going to post the same comment. One of my favorite earlier Hitchcock movies, in part because it's about the dark undercurrents in a small town and has a screenplay by "Our Town" author Thornton Wilder.

And fantastic hair, make-up and costume design!

Greer...

Garson couldn't play wicked.

I bet she was a great Mame, r103.

I’m still thinking about that pic of George C. Scott at R57. Looking hot, and nice package, too.