THE LITTLE FOXES (Samuel Goldwyn, 1941) Warner Home Video
Publicity for 1942’s In This Our Life claimed
no one was quite so good at being bad as Bette Davis. Indeed, by 1941, Davis unabashedly
had made a name for herself in Hollywood, toggling between performances in
which she played pitiable creatures, destined to never find their hearts’ desire,
and other, more disreputable and wicked women to whom such an appendage was
decidedly foreign. One of Davis’ supreme
gargoyles first emerged in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes (1941):
Regina Giddens, the heartless maven of a decaying Southern family, who
brutalizes her inept brothers, and ruthlessly denies her dying husband the
heart medication that could possibly save his life – instead, rigidly seated in
her parlor chair and listening, with intense and piercing eyes as he gasps and
finally expires on the staircase just behind her. No doubt about – Davis enjoyed
playing the bitch. And, with all due respect to Ms. Davis’ craft, she did it so
well. Precisely from whence her
motivations sprang remains open for discussion. Indeed, there are as many in
Hollywood to defend Davis as a go-getter, misunderstood in her determination to
succeed, as those who profess Davis, herself, was manipulative and ruthlessly
ambitious to a fault. The truth, arguably, lies somewhere between these polar
opposites or, even with all her clout and acting prowess, she would not have
remained a fixture in Hollywood for almost 60 years, becoming a legend in her
own time.
But for certain, The Little Foxes put a period to
a rather tempestuous creative alliance between director, William Wyler and
Warner's 'fifth brother', Bette Davis. The two had begun their association as
respectful collaborators on the set of Jezebel (1938); Wyler, gingerly
coaxing his willful star through a performance of such subtly realized nuances,
it easily won Davis her second Academy Award. By the time Jezebel
wrapped, Davis and Wyler had also become lovers, despite the fact each was
married to somebody else at the time. Their an ‘on again/off again’ affair,
well-known around town, but tolerated by their respective spouses and kept
secret from the public, lasted their working together again on Somerset
Maugham's The Letter (1940). But by the time Davis stood before the
cameras to immortalize Regina Giddens in this adaptation of a play by Lillian
Hellman, she and Wyler were quite simply at each other’s throats. In hindsight,
the fireworks behind the scenes augmented Davis’ unrelentingly bitter spitfire.
Sufficiently aged to portray the matriarch of teenaged daughter, Davis as Regina
Giddens, the most lethal and treacherous of an unscrupulous Southern family of
backstabbers, remains one of the finest efforts yet attained by the actress who
still easily had a decade’s worth of solid performances to commit to celluloid.
Hellman’s title hails from the Song of Solomon,
in Chapter 2, Verse 15 of the King James’ Bible – “Take us the foxes, the
little foxes, that spoil the vines… for our vines have tender grapes.” Hellman,
by 1940, was as renowned as any of the great literary figures of the early 20th
century; uniquely situated as an American playwright, capable of exposing the
grim and malignant truths of humanity, but in a way that kept her forthright
political activism and communist sympathies neatly concealed beneath a veneer
of compelling literary artistry. Ultimately, Hellman, like so many, would fall
prey to the ‘great purge’ of McCarthy’s blacklisting efforts between 1947 and 1952.
Her retreat to Broadway, after Hollywood shunned her, definitely impacted her income
– though hardly her reputation. For a chiseling away of that deity we must
advance several decades (more on this, in a moment). But, for a time, Hellman’s
work, to include such powerful contributions to the stage as Watch on the
Rhine, Toys in the Attic, and, The Children's Hour (all made
into movies of varying quality and success) continued to fire the imagination. The
Little Foxes, semi-autobiographical, and, imbued with Hellman’s clear-eyed
ability to strip bare the foibles and follies of the wicked and depraved,
resulted in her becoming the first screenwriter to receive an individual
Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1943. Yet, from this golden
epoch, Hellman was to endure much criticism for her ‘involvement’ with famed crime/detective
writer, Dashiell Hammett, blacklisted until 1961, the year of his death. While
it has been suggested Hammett was Hellman’s great love, the couple never
married. Alas, Hellman proved her own worst enemy when she segued from plays to
penning colorful memoirs – her best-selling recollections condemned by Mary
McCarthy on The Dick Cavett Show in 1979 when McCarthy scathingly
suggested everything Hellman wrote was a lie, including the words ‘and’
and ‘the’. Hellman sued both McCarthy and Cavett, sparking a powder keg
of criticism for her autobiographical accounts, including those which had already
been immortalized in the movie version of Julia (1977). Ultimately, Hellman’s
defamation suit was never to be resolved in her lifetime, later withdrawn after
her death in 1984.
As a movie, The Little Foxes maintains Hellman's
grisly and cancerous ferocity for utterly cold and pathological back-stabbing;
Bette Davis, offering one of the irrefutably vial and sadistic gargoyles,
dredged up from human history. The trick and the magic in Davis’ portrayal is
it remains utterly compelling in all its repugnant deviancy. Wyler, with the aid of cinematographer
extraordinaire, Gregg Toland managed to expose the fey vulgarity in Hellman’s
gallery of morally bankrupt and decaying villains; Davis’ Regina, the most prominent
of all, adding a light timber to the venom originally hued with brassy aplomb
on the stage by Tallulah Bankhead. The picture, produced by Samuel Goldwyn
under a highly lucrative, if one-sided, distribution deal in his favor with RKO,
yields excellent performances from Charles Dingle as Regina’s conspiratorial
brother, Ben Hubbard, Carl Benton Reid as Oscar, the marvelously shady, hostile
and variable of the clan, and, Dan Duryea, as the thoroughly unscrupulous, Leo,
all imported from Hellman’s stagecraft, along with Patricia Collinge, as the
devastatingly fragile Birdie, augmented in her frailty by pure-of-heart
performances from Goldwyn fav’, Teresa Wright as Regina’s daughter, Alexandra,
unsuspecting of the depths of her mother’s cruelty towards her father, the
utterly exquisite - Herbert Marshall as Regina’s estranged husband, Horace,
and, finally, a very young Richard Carlson as David Hewitt (a character not in
the original play, but added by Hellman into her screen adaptation). David does
not trust this lot for a single moment, but is desperately in love with
Alexandra and, in the last act, comes to her chivalrous rescue.
Tallulah Bankhead’s success in Hellman’s 1939 Broadway
production did not equate to her even being considered for a reprise in the movie,
as none of Bankhead’s other Hollywood ventures had proven lucrative. And while
Bette Davis ultimately was the right choice for the movie, Davis was circumspect
to downright reluctant to accept the part. “I begged…Goldwyn, to let
Tallulah…play Regina because (she) was magnificent on the stage. He wouldn't
let her.” The machinations by which Davis eventually came to the role
involved some finagling with Jack Warner, who initially refused the loan out of
his most bankable star to Goldwyn. In reply, Goldwyn pitched the property to
Miriam Hopkins. Now, it was Wyler who became entrenched in the cause of seeing
Davis through as his star, refusing to work with Hopkins, and thus, forcing
Goldwyn to re-enter into negotiations with Warner for Davis’ services.
Eventually, a deal was struck for a staggering $385,000, of which Davis only
earned $3,000 a week. But when Davis discovered how much Jack had been paid,
she demanded her share as remuneration. Owing to some epic previous clashes
with his most volatile star, Warner relented, and Davis received an undisclosed
percentage in addition to her usual salary. Wyler’s singular counsel to Davis
was that she attend Bankhead in the play before embarking upon the movie. This,
Davis did, but later regretted the decision as she felt it forced her to forsake
Bankhead’s subtly nuanced and effective mannerisms as the victimized Southern
belle, forced to claw her way back for mere survival. More in line with her own
temperament, Davis approached Regina as an emotionless, crafty and very shrewd viper,
sporting a powder white ‘death mask’ created by makeup artist, Perc Westmore.
Wyler, who had fought so hard to secure Davis for the
movie, now came to the realization he was not to have the same symbiotic
working relationship with his star (and ex-lover) this third time around. Davis
clashed with Wyler on almost every point of production, from her demands to
look older, to Stephen Goossen’s art direction which Davis believed was far too
stately to suggest a Southern clan in steep financial decline. Davis also
bucked Wyler’s demand she play Regina with a modicum of empathy. As production
settled into its daily grind, Wyler became even more perplexed and apoplectic over
Davis’ rank refusal to any and all of his demands. “It was the only time in
my career that I walked out…after the shooting had begun," Davis 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.” Despite their mutual animosity, The Little Foxes was a
great success. In fact, it actually set a single day’s attendance record at
Radio City Music Hall for its premiere. Tragically, Wyler and Davis never
worked together again, although they appeared to have buried the hatchet by
1971, the year Wyler rekindled his admiration for Davis publicly during a
taping of the popular TV program, ‘This is Your Life’.
The screenplay, adapted by Hellman, with additional
scenes and dialogue from Dorothy Parker, Arthur Kober and Alan Campbell opens
with a bittersweet coup. Regina's elder brother, Oscar has entered into a
loveless marriage with Birdie Hubbard, an emotionally fragile creature prone to
alcoholism, simply to inherit a portion of her family's plantation and cotton
fields. Oscar's plan is to enrich his own dwindling coffers in an alliance with
elder brother, Ben – the two building a cotton mill that will restore the
family's reputation to prominence. In this shuffle, Oscar has all but discarded
his wife. Having realized the error in her marriage too late, Birdie gently
tries to advise her niece, Alexandra against a similar fate being perpetrated
on the unsuspecting girl by no less than her own mother, Regina. Once proud and
prosperous, Regina’s determination to be flush with riches once again spurs her
to plot the financial ruin of her two brothers, while orchestrating a forced
romance between Alexandra and devious first cousin, Leo - Oscar's son. Such a
marriage would surely afford Leo - and more indirectly Regina and Oscar -
access to Alexandra's paternal inheritance. Alexandra, however, is infatuated
with David Hewitt, an impertinent telegraph operator who immeasurably enjoys
goading Alexandra to wild distraction. Like Birdie, however, David really only
has Alexandra's best interests at heart.
The bond Alexandra shares with her ailing father,
Horace is a special one. He has always loved her and been protectively devoted,
respecting Regina's wishes in Alexandra's upbringing, though ever cautious of
the negative influences she may exude. Yet, despite Regina's obvious impact,
Alexandra has remained unspoiled and true to her own heart. Regrettably, this
admirable innocence is not to last. Regina asks Horace outright for his money
to save their sagging finances. He refuses.
Regina’s next course of action is to align with Oscar - both convincing
the rather dimwitted Leo, a bank clerk, to steal Horace's railroad bonds from
his safety deposit box. Discovering this plan afoot, Horace summons Regina to
the parlor and informs her, he has decided to change his Will. Alexandra will
inherit everything. Furthermore, he will give Leo the bonds, thereby cutting
her out of Oscar and Ben's cotton deal entirely. However, before Horace can
solidify these efforts, he suffers a fatal heart attack as Regina looks on,
quietly refusing him the medication that might save his life. A grieving
Alexandra remains oblivious to her mother's treachery. Regina now turns her attentions
to blackmailing Oscar and Ben. She will have Leo arrested for stealing her late
husband's bonds unless both brothers agree to give her seventy-five percent ownership
in their mills. With little recourse, Oscar and Ben reluctantly agree. But
their acquiescence comes at a terrible price for Regina. At long last exposed to the truest depths of
her mother’s evil, Alexandra confronts Regina, demanding an explanation. She
denounces Regina and tells her she will never be a party to her devious ways
again. David comes to take Alexandra
away, leaving Regina the heir of the Giddens' estate, yet destined to remain
thoroughly isolated in her resplendent cage.
The Little Foxes is a magnificent, if sadly
underrated masterpiece in Bette Davis' body of work, rarely seen, even on
premium cable TV channels devoted to classic movies. The reason is simply
appalling, with rights issues and Warner Home Video’s custodianship of the
MGM/UA, Goldwyn catalog, somehow resulting in a stalemate to get a properly
remastered and restored home video release of this bone-chilling melodrama. Davis
brings forth a menace of malevolence as the intellectually scheming matriarch.
In later years, William Wyler would go on record with his own disappointment
about Davis' performance. To be certain, Davis’ Regina Giddens is a spider
woman with no redemptive qualities, self-serving and wholly unsympathetic, existing
in a sort of soulless vacuum by Davis’ own design. That said, Davis brings a
myriad of subtleties to this hateful insect that are so compellingly, they
create a magnetic charge for the audience, if not to be embraced, then
certainly, to remain riveted in their seats. When Davis' Regina Giddens appears, nothing
and no one else matters. Instead, we are
brought to heel by the callous shock and awe of this supremely demonic creation,
selfishly brutalizing even her child to enrich her own desires. It is a truly
terrifying performance, one for which even a psychoanalytic critique somehow
falls short to summarize – Regina, neither misguided nor misunderstood, with Davis
intangibly, miraculously, to pull her back from the brink of undiluted evil
incarnate. What a performance! The central themes of innocence lost and
regained are well established in Teresa Wright and Herbert Marshall's tender
and understated performances, and to a lesser extent, through Birdie's fatally
flawed endeavors to intervene on Alexandra's behalf while living in crippling
fear of her own husband. The Little
Foxes is also a superb drawing room melodrama, painstakingly paced by
Wyler. As seen through master cinematographer, Gregg Toland's deep focus lens,
the omnipotent darkness and decay of this declining family is rekindled as an
implosion of decency itself, or rather, a cruel bastardization of the geniality
of the South.
To date, MGM/UA Home Video’s tired old DVD is the only
incarnation of The Little Foxes to be had. While the packaging has
changed with Warner’s acquisition of the Goldwyn catalog, the remastering
efforts remain the same, and, rather disappointing at that. Despite a refined
gray scale with solid deep blacks and very clean whites with minimal age-related
artifacts, the entire image is marred by a relatively high concentration of
digital anomalies; edge enhancement, shimmering of fine details and pixelization
- all of them quite distracting. One hopes to someday see this film properly restored
and made available for Blu-ray the way Warner has since taken a gamble on
another of Wyler’s great classics for Goldwyn - Dodsworth (1936). For
certain, The Little Foxes deserves far better than it has received! The 1.0
Dolby Digital mono audio has been reinstated on this Warner reissue of the
MGM/UA disc. The old MGM/UA offering had a bizarre pseudo-stereo, authored by
Chase, creating a sort of echo-tunnel effect. A theatrical trailer is all the
extras we get, looking as though it were fed through a meat grinder. Bottom
line: movies as good as The Little Foxes deserve 1080p transfers as grand as
their artistry. Will The Little Foxes become the recipient of WAC’s
treasured archive someday soon? I sincerely hope so, as this DVD is sub-par for
what ought to pass for a home video release these days! Regrets.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
2
EXTRAS
0
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