The Fox *** (1967, Sandy Dennis, Keir Dullea, Anne Heywood, Glyn Morris) – Classic Movie Review 8246

Director Mark Rydell’s once sensational but not overheated 1968 pioneering lesbian drama The Fox is taken from D H Lawrence’s novella about two women (Sandy Dennis as sickly, talky Jill Banford and Anne Heywood as interior, powerful Ellen March) running an isolated chicken farm in Canada. The unhappy couple’s life is shattered by the arrival of handsome seaman Paul Grenfell (Keir Dullea), who has a fling with Heywood’s Ellen and symbolically kills a fox.

The Fox won the 1968 Golden Globe Award for Best English-Language Foreign Film, as it was made in Canada. And there were three further nominations for Best Director, Best Actress (Heywood) and Best Screenplay. Lalo Schifrin was an Oscar and Grammy nominee for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture.

There are sensitive, carefully constructed, believable performances from the three principals and attuned direction by Rydell, who also points his camera at lovely, chilly rural Canada, with the help of William A Fraker’s gorgeous cinematography.

The Fox is a much better film than you might imagine possible in 1968 of this material. It is a cast of three plus Glyn Morris as Overstreet.

The film’s house and barn are located at the end of Laskay Lane, Laskay, King Township, York, Ontario, north of Toronto.

The Fox is directed by Mark Rydell, runs 110 minutes, is made by Motion Picture International, is released by Seven Arts and Warner, is written by Lewis John Carlino and Howard Koch, is shot by William A Fraker, is produced by Steve Broidy (executive producer), Raymond Stross and Howard Koch (associate producer), is scored by Lalo Schifrin, and is designed by Charles Bailey.

Anne Heywood (real name Violet Pretty) was born on 11 December 1932, and won the Miss Great Britain beauty title in 1950. She was married to producer Raymond Stross. After his death in 1988, she retired from films and remarried (to former New York Assistant Attorney General George Danzig Druke).

Playboy magazine unveiled a pictorial essay just before the film’s release with Heywood in the nude.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8246

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