The Little Foxes ***** (1941, Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Dan Duryea, Richard Carlson) – Classic Movie Review 2706

In one of her most popular movies, double Oscar-winner Bette Davis landed another Oscar nomination for her cold, calculating and conniving Southern belle character Regina Giddens, who does terrible things to her estranged husband Horace Giddens (Herbert Marshall).

It is the story of the ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan who lives in and poisons their part of the deep South at the turn of the 20th century, focusing on the awful Regina Giddons, née Hubbard, who has her daughter under her thumb.

It reunites Davis, Marshall and director William Wyler after their hit The Letter the previous year. For the second time a Wyler directed Davis vehicle was nominated for Best Picture, Director and Actress at the Academy Awards. And for the second year in a row, everyone went home empty-handed.

This 1941 gem is a splendid version of Lillian Hellman’s 1939 Broadway stage hit, which had starred Tallulah Bankhead). The movie is handled by director William Wyler in the tautest and most meticulous way, and Hellman opens out her own play (with assist form legendary wit Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell) to the smoothest of effects.

Wyler decided not to open the play out for his film adaptation and this time this theatricality works perfectly. Davis and Wyler fought incessantly to the point where she threatened to walk out, but the result is smooth perfection.

Dan Duryea (as Leo Hubbard, in his film début), Patricia Collinge, Carl Benton Reid and Charles Dingle repeat their stage roles, a rare honour for stage actors in those days. I don’t suppose this was any consolation to Tallulah Bankhead, though Hitchcock did hire her for Lifeboat.

Extremely engrossing and enjoyable; this is classic Davis and vintage Hollywood.

Also in the cast are Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Russell Hicks, John Marriott, Jessie Grayson. Carlson’s character David Hewitt was added to the film to provide a love interest for Alexandra Giddens (Teresa Wright),

It set an attendance record for a normal opening day at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, with more than 22,000 admissions. It was a big hit, but somehow RKO ended up making an initial loss of $140,000. RKO distributed it in a double bill with Citizen Kane in January 1942 to recoup its losses on both films.

Warner Bros loaned Davis to RKO to play Regina Giddens so Jack L Warner could pay his $300,000 gambling debt to Samuel Goldwyn, who had to pay Warners $385,000 for Davis’s services.

An ailing Elizabeth Taylor starred in the play in London in the early Eighties, playing the role in a wheelchair. It has had three Broadway revivals, with Anne Bancroft in 1967, Taylor in 1981 and Stockard Channing in 1997. The original stage production with Bankhead opened at the National Theater in New York on February 15 1939 and ran for 410 performances.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2706

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com