The Little Foxes (1941)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- It's the turn of the century in the deep South, and the Hubbard siblings are embroiled in their own money-driven, power-hungry civil war. Most calculating of the group is Regina (Bette Davis), who, along with her brother, demands ownership of a cotton mill expected to yield millions. Proving that blood is not thicker than greed, the Hubbards will stop at nothing to push their unscrupulous deal through...Even if it means destroying everyone around them!
- Actors:
- Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Dan Duryea, Patricia Collinge, Charles Dingle, Carl Benton Reid, Jessica Grayson, John Marriott, Russell Hicks, Lucien Littlefield, Virginia Brissac, Terry Nibert, Henry 'Hot Shot' Thomas, Charles R. Moore, Hooper Atchley, Al Bridge, Tex Driscoll, Jesse Graves
- Directors:
- William Wyler
- Producers:
- Samuel Goldwyn
- Writers:
- Lillian Hellman, Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell
- Others:
- Patricia Collinge, Lillian Hellman, Meredith Willson, Howard Bristol, Daniel Mandell, Stephen Goosson
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama
- Collections:
- Award Winners, Ireland At the Oscars, Oscar Nominations Competition 2023, People of the Pictures, Remembering Ryan O'Neal, Richard Attenborough: A Centenary Special Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to William Wyler, The Instant Expert's Guide to Yasujiro Ozu
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Reviews (1) of The Little Foxes
Southern melodrama. - The Little Foxes review by Steve
This is set in a small town in early twentieth century Alabama where little has changed since the civil war. It is a poor community, of low wage workers and racial apartheid, which is resistant to change. The southern aristocracy has atrophied and the new money of American capitalists is about to feed on the corpse of the confederacy.
The adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play is set almost entirely in a single house. As a woman, Bette Davis' matriarch has to fight for wealth through her husband (Herbert Marshall). He has grown tired of exploiting the weak and is terminally sick. But the wife and her brothers need his money to secure a deal which will make them very rich.
This is a fascinating film of the decline of a corrupt tradition about to be consumed by the wealth of the few. They are all avaricious monsters who howl and tear at each other as much as those they exploit. Davis is impassive behind her mask of white paint, which conceals her tawdry appetites and sordid ambitions.
It is specifically about the deep south, which would dominate Hollywood drama in the middle of the century. Hellman's writing is more precise than the poetics of her contemporaries. This is a frank exposure of the physical and emotional violence hidden in domesticity and a society where southern gentility is merely a strategy.