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This was a surprisingly good movie - for me, not people who like Bette Davis and melodramas. They got what they hoped for, another solid film with her starring in it. I don't particularly care for Davis or "soaps," but I liked this film and see it more of a straight drama, anyway, especially because of the crisp dialog.

It's a story about money and how to use it or how to acquire more of it through deceit and greed. Davis, as "Regina Gidden," is the most greedy of the Gidden clan, vying for more money with her brothers who aren't exactly trustworthy people themselves. Among the three, there wasn't anyone to root for since the family shared in their lust for money. Davis does her normal excellent acting job but I enjoyed Charles Dingle as "(Uncle) Ben Hubbard" best. I liked his lines more than anyone's and the way he delivered them. Carl Benton Reid played the other greedy Hubbard brother, "Oscar" and Dan Duryea was interesting as Oscar's dumb son, 'Leo."

Herbert Marshall was good, too, as Regina's husband "Horace." He was an honest, principled man and thus, the black sheep in that household. Unfortunately, he was dying and his death played a big part in this story.

The sub-plot in this tale is the coming-of-age of Hubbard daughter "Alexandra" played by Teresa Wright. Her "coming of age" translates to finally standing up to her domineering mother. Richard Carlson plays her reluctant boyfriend "David Hewitt" who, in the end, is won over when "Alexandra" grows up.

So, this excellent cast, complemented by an outstanding director in William Wyler and world-class cinematographer Gregg Toland all adds up to a solid, memorable film.

Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes went from Broadway to Hollywood after it ran 410 performances in the 1939-1940 season through the good offices of Sam Goldwyn. Five members of the Broadway cast came west and repeated their roles, Patricia Collinge, Carl Benton Reid, Charles Dingle, Dan Duryea, and John Marriott. But the lead part of Regina Giddens which gave Tallulah Bankhead her career role on Broadway went to a proved movie name, Bette Davis. Bette then made the part all her own.

Davis is the sister of Ben and Oscar Hubbard, Charles Dingle and Carl Benton Reid. They are a family of trades people, poor white trash in those halcyon years in the South before the Civil War. When the war laid the genteel planter class low, these are the people who prospered and became what was euphemistically entitled 'the new South.'

They're a tough and ruthless family, but they are survivors though the next generation shows little promise because Dan Duryea who is the son of Reid and Patricia Collinge is an idiot and Teresa Wright, the daughter of Davis and Herbert Marshall will be rejecting the values of the previous Hubbard generation.

I don't think Lillian Hellman's Marxist leanings were ever more prominently on display in her writing as in The Little Foxes. Though the characters she creates are brilliant, the elder Hubbards are a rather heavy handed symbols for greedy capitalism. It's not quite clear where Teresa Wright and her suitor Richard Carlson will be on the political spectrum having rejected Hubbard family values.

The plot of the play itself is that Dingle and Reid are ready to invest in a cotton mill with northern businessman Russell Hicks. But they need more money which they're hoping Marshall and Davis will provide. That leads to all kinds of complications, legal and moral for the family.

Hellman left it open as to what will happen. My guess is that she honestly didn't know. Like most Marxists of the day, especially American Marxists, they sat and waited for the great come and get it revolution like fervent Pentacostals waiting for the Judgement Day. Wright in fact wishes for a society where people like her mother and uncles don't run things.

Sadly and this is the weakness of The Little Foxes is that Hellman drew her characters too well. I'd be willing to bet that Ben and Oscar would find a way to wind up Commisars if they had been transplanted into Russia during the revolution. Idealists had a short life span in the early days of the Soviet Union, never more so than after Joseph Stalin took over. Whatever else they are, the Hubbards ain't idealists.

Still The Little Foxes is a riveting drama that will keep your interest through the whole film even if you don't buy the message totally.

Like a fine locomotive, this film picks up steam with each passing scene. Each building upon the next, gaining speed until it culminates in a cinematic masterpiece, and the expression "Betty Davis Eyes" is born!

Not having seen the entire movie until recently, I knew about the "staircase" scene, and everyone knows which one I'm referring to, my heart raced as I kept waiting for it to happen. It's a superb, disturbing moment, with Bette giving a look that could turn Medusa to stone!

Theresa Wright has long been a favorite of mine. Some people have said her character was too nice and sweet. Perhaps, but Xan was probably supposed to be around the age of 16, but she holds her own against Bette. Patricia Collinge was incredible, giving a controlled yet brittle performance of an abused wife who turns to alcohol. In fact the entire ensemble works so well together that there is no weak link in the production.

This film fully deserves its reputation as one of the most scorching dramas of greed and corruption ever placed on celluloid. A deceptively slow start soon draws into the machinations of the Hubbard clan whose brazen backstabbings and betrayals even today make our jaws drop. Davis' stunning portrayal of the supremely grasping Regina Giddens leads a stellar cast which does a superb job of delineating a finely drawn group of characters. Charles Dingle's deceptively warm smile masks the cooly intelligent deviousness of Ben Hubbard. Carl Reid's Oscar Hubbard is just as malicious but his inferior intelligence makes him yield to his brother's and sister's lead. Dan Duryea nicely portrays the imbecilic and immature Leo Hubbard, a characterization which borders on but never crosses over into comedy. Patricia Collinge breaks our hearts as the broken-spirited and alcoholic Birdie, Oscar's wife. Herbert Marshall's performance as the doomed Horace, Regina's husband, delineates the pain, anger, and sense of betrayal burning beneath his deathly illness. The star of the proceedings, however, is clearly Davis. Wyler's superb direction blends all these characters into a masterful whole.

Hellman's skill as a dramatist must be credited for much of this, but her Marxist inclinations clearly peep through the seams of the dialogue.

I'm glad I finally had a chance to see this undoubted classic. Thanks again to that great channel, American Movie Classics.

I always loved Lillian Hellman, way ahead of her time - she may have been controversial with powerful enemies and treacherous groupies but I'm always reminded of the stuff the lady was made of by going back to the letter she wrote to the House Of Un-American Activites that she wrote knowing that she was risking everything. She paid a heavy price but now we know who the real, patriotic Americans were - Lillian Hellman right up there - I saw The Little Foxes last night - first time in two decades - and I was enveloped in its relevance. Lillian Hellman herself wrote the screenplay based on her play about greed, the banquet of the 1 per cent and the blatant social injustice. Class, race and all the rest of it. As if that wasn't overwhelming enough, William Wyler and Bette Davis - what an brilliant combination - Davis was only 33 when she played Regina - Astonishing performance. This must be one of her very best, The film also has the extraordinary Patricia Collinge as Birdie and Teresa Wright. This is a film to visit and revisit for its historical relevance and cinematic brilliance

A gleefully macabre and intensely suspenseful movie based on the Lillian Hellman play. Bette Davis sinks her teeth into the role of icy bitch Regina Giddens with such relish that you can practically hear her sighing with satisfaction at getting away from the noble sufferer roles that had so recently made her famous in films like "Jezebel" and "Dark Victory." She's monstrous here as the frigid wife of Herbert Marshall, waiting impatiently for him to die so that she can get her talons on his inheritance. A group of conniving brothers are trying to outsmart her and claim the inheritance for themselves, but they have no idea who they're dealing with. We ultimately can forgive Davis for her reptilian selfishness, because she's driven to it out of survival. If you want to play with the big boys, the movie seems to say, you have to learn to be one yourself.

This is a lesson her sister-in-law, Birdie, hasn't learned, and as a result is a fluttering, neurotic mess of a woman, bulldozed by her husband and supreme example of exactly the kind of woman Regina refuses to be. Birdie is played by Patricia Collinge in a devastatingly heartbreaking performance. Just watch her in the scene where her husband slaps her; you can almost literally see the life drain out of her as she accepts her misery as a cage from which she doesn't ever really hope, or feels she deserves, to escape.

And as the moral conscience of the film, Teresa Wright plays Regina's daughter, Alexandra, slow to pick up on the treacherous games her own mother is playing.

The classic scene in this film is the one in which Regina's husband actually dies. She's sitting feet away from him, watching him gasp for breath while refusing to get the medication that could save his life, and Davis's creepy, empty expression shows us just how little compassion or sympathy, or even any emotion other than greed and vengeance, remains in this grotesque, twisted creature. Marvelous!

Grade: A+

Davis insisted on playing Regina, not as written, not as Wyler wanted & she misinterpreted the role badly. In the play, Regina was the victim of her malignant brothers machinations. Davis, ridiculously over the top w/ chalk white ghostly makeup, decided to make Regina the villain & succeeded only in hogging screen time. She destroys the original structure of Hellman's play. I guess she thought she was a better writer than Hellman & a better director than Wyler. Her excuse was she didn't want to copy Tallulah Bankhead's performance but that wasn't what Wyler wanted either. She had the talent to make Regina her own & stay true to the play but she refused & even walked off the set. She should've stayed off. Davis fought terribly w/ Wyler & they never worked together again. It's a shame because she needed a strong director to reign in her mannerisms. Wyler had previously brought out one of her best performances in The Letter. Is she entertaining here? Of course she is. She hilariously displays a performance that is pure camp. From here on, w/ the exception of her most brilliant Margo Channing in All About Eve, something hard infused into her acting & she became a bad parody of her former talent. The rest of the cast plays it well. Tallulah should've played it.

Based on a play, feels like a play. Slow-moving, overly melodramatic, overly scheme-filled, overwrought. Not entirely dull, but it is very difficult to stay focused it moves so slowly. The excessive malevolence and greed on display is also very off-putting.

On the plus side, it is a mildly interesting morality tale. It is just that the immorality/amorality is so overdone that the movie doesn't feel balanced. There are glimpses of goodness, but these are often extinguished quickly, and/or are always fighting a losing battle.

Bette Davis is evil personified as Regina Giddens. While her character is incredibly unsavoury, Davis' performance is spot-on. Good support from Herbert Marshall and Teresa Wright.

Bette Davis stars as Regina Giddens in this film version of Lillian Hellman's smash hit play (which starred Tallulah Bankhead). This tale of the pre-industrial south of 1900 pits Regina against her greedy brothers as they scheme to open a textile mill that will make them rich. Great performances here from Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson, Charles Dingle, Patricia Collinge, Dan Duryea, Jessie Grayson, and Carl Benton Reid. Sort of a modern King Lear, but Hellman had a wicked ear for acid dialog and her characters each have moments of grandeur as they spit and snarl. Collinge is very good as pitiable Birdie. Wright and Carlson are especially good as the young lovers, and Duryea gives a wonderfully slimy performance. Dingle has his best role as the smart brother, and Marshall--always underrated in Hollywood--is splendid as Horace. Bette Davis gives a controlled and icy performance as the woman who never gets what she wants. Her final scene from the window as she watches her daughter leave in the rain is a classic. Great film about a dysfunctional family before there even WAS such a thing!

One of the several masterpieces made by master William Wyler, and definetely one of the best movies of all times. As he did in The Letter, Mr. Wyler counted on Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall to play the leading roles in Little Foxes; and the choice worked out perfectly again.

I'm sure that some of the others reviewers will have written about the story of Little Foxes (greed, betrayal, hate... against honesty and loyalty), so I won't. I'll talk about some other things:

-Bette Davis: for me there're no more than 5 actresses which would deserve the title of "best actress ever": Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Audrey Hepburn, Barbra Stanwyck, and of course Bette. She was the best playing evil women, heartless, unmerciful ones. And there's no doubt that the character of Reggina Gibbens gathers all those characteristics together. The performing of Bette Davis is memorable (as expected), and the way she says things such as "I don't hate you, I just feel contempt for you"... that are just like a punch in your face. There should be a picture of Mrs. Davis in the dictionaries next to that sentence that says "look that kills". Bette Davis was the look that killed.

-The Film: "Millimetric" it would be a nice word to define the script. Some of the dialogues of Little Foxes are part of the history of cinema, especially the ones between Reggina and her husband. The scene in which she watches him have a heartattack is simply devastating. There are lots of long shot-sequences that intensify the tension, and Wyler's sense of rhythm is something to be shown in Cinema School even nowadays (especially nowadays).

We got the Gioconda, the Basílica of San Pedro in Vatican, the Guernica... and we got movies such as The Little Foxes.

My rate: 10/10

I remember the biggest impression I had from William Wyler's The Big Country was the effortless blocking of the frame where several subjects at several different distances from the camera were perfectly placed to create aesthetically pleasing images. I found it remarkable, and I finally spun up The Little Foxes, Wyler's earlier adaptation of Lilliam Hellmann's play of the same name, and I found the same thing. It's never flashy, but it's always purposeful and impactful. Wyler was never a flashy director, but he was obviously one who understood that the space of the frame was as much about depth as it was about up and down. What he does so effortlessly reminds me of what Ingmar Bergman learned to do over the course of his career, especially in Fanny and Alexander.

The Hubbards are three siblings in their middle ages who represent new money in the South. One of them, Oscar, married Birdie, the last in a line of old school Southern aristocrats, inheriting her name and property while the Hubbards provide the spitfire of work ethic, grit, and underhandedness that the original family never really had. Besides Oscar, there is the unmarried Benjamin as well as the sister, Regina who had married the now absent Horace Giddens, off in Baltimore recovering his health. Regina and Benjamin have a daughter, Alexandra, who lives with Regina. The three Hubbard siblings have a plot to attract a cotton mill to their sleepy little town using their nationally low wages as a selling point to the investor from Chicago.

After the investor leaves, happy with the arrangement, the problems are revealed. Oscar and Benjamin can raise their $75,000, but Regina can't on her own. Her money is all owned by Horace, who's off in Baltimore, and they're not exactly on speaking terms. He comes back because Regina sends Alexandra, using her as a tool to get him back so that the three siblings can work him into giving them the $75,000. The problem is that he sees the three as scheming amoral monsters, and he doesn't want to help them. So, he resists, potentially crashing their plans. Sure, they could go outside the family, but they'd lose control. They need the money from inside the family. Oscar's son, Leo has an idea, though. His Uncle Horace has a safety deposit box at the bank that he owns and Leo works at. Leo can get into that box and steal $75,000 of $90,000 in bonds, invest the money, buy the bonds back, and replace them before Horace ever notices since he looks in the box so infrequently.

Well, that's not going to go too well. Of course Horace finds out, and he finds an inventive way to undercut Regina specifically, even though she has nothing to do with the theft. In return, Regina takes her rage out, almost passively at the same time, on Horace, giving her a win in the fight, allowing her to invest the money and even take an overlarge share of the profits. And yet, she ends up losing in the end.

The key to her loss is Alexandra. Alexandra is a sweet hearted girl untouched as of yet by the venom of her mother and uncles. Her future is manifested by Oscars wife Birdie. Birdie is also a good natured woman, several decades older and beaten down. She often disappears because of headaches that are excuses for bouts of heavy drinking. This is what the Hubbards do to people. They either make them like them or they beat them into a pulp emotionally and psychologically. Alexandra has a choice, and she ends up choosing to simply not take part. Since Regina was doing her part in the effort to build the mill as a vehicle for wealth for her and her daughter, Alexander walking away makes the exercise empty. Regina has pushed away anyone who ever really loved her, and all she has are her two awful brothers.

Some ways that these relationships are really sold in this movie is through those marvelously deep focus shots that Wyler was able to use to frequently to great effect. There are wonderful shots with Birdie three levels deep into the frame, simply broken as she listens to her husband and his siblings, unable to stick up for herself or what she thinks is right. She ends up surrounded by her venomous family in the frame, making her seem trapped, even though no one is actually looking at her because she's ten feet behind everyone. It's simply intelligent and three-dimensional use of the frame, and something I wish filmmakers did more of. Those shots of Birdie end up getting recalled late in the film with Alexandra in the same position as she becomes more and more like her sweet aunt.

William Wyler was a very good director who understood the visual elements of filmmaking better than most. In adapting this play, he used the tools of cinema to help tell the story in a visual way that's engaging and involving, much like how David Lean intelligent adapted Hobson's Choice for the screen. This is a hidden gem of a film.

The Little Foxes is as entertaining today as it was in 1941. Lillian Hellman's theatrical hit with Tallulah Bankhead is magnificently brought to the screen by William Wyler with Bette Davis in the TB role. Davis received her fourth straight Oscar nomination (her sixth over all at that point in her career) for portraying Regina Giddons. It is a performance that rates among the best ever created by Davis, or any other actress for that matter.

Greg Toland's deep focus photography rivals that of his work on Citizen Kane.

It's nine Oscar nominations include Teresa Wright's for best supporting actress.

This was the third and last time Davis and Wyler worked together. During the shoot the two did not get along -- Davis even walked off the set and was almost replaced by Goldwyn. She was loaned to Goldwyn as part of a trade out for Warner Bros to have Gary Cooper for Sgt. York -- he took home the Oscar for best actor.

Dorothy Parker translated the theatrical script for the screen adding more location scenes for Wright.

Exceptional filming of Lillian Hellman's play about an evil Southern family falling to pieces. It's all overseen by cold cruel Regina (Bette Davis) who will do anything to get what she wants.

Just simply this is great. I was never bored once during the entire 2 hours this ran. I literally couldn't stop watching. The script (very close to the play) is wonderful--one great line after another. It's also well-directed by William Wyler--just his composition of shots was incredible. Purportedly he put his actors through hell with take after take--but it works. This is a rare movie where ALL the acting is great--not one bad performance up there. Teresa Wright is a little too whiny--but this was her first film. Even Richard Carlson is good! Who ever knew he was so handsome and could act? He was wasted in all those action and sci-fi pics he did. Davis, of course, gives the best performance. She obviously relishes playing a totally evil character.

This movie has many great moments but, for me, there are two highlights--Carlson has a GREAT moment where he casually tells off Davis (how many actors can stand up to Davis--and live?) and the last talk between Davis and Herbert Marshall (playing her husband). This isn't for everybody--with the exceptions of Carlson, Marshall and Wright there isn't one sympathetic character. This may be too cold and cruel for some viewers, but I was fascinated throughout. One of Davis' best performances. Don't miss this one! A 10.

Now..now.. don't get me wrong. By discomfort, I could only mean that I was greatly disappointed that this movie ended so abruptly. I was just getting comfortable with this well written little masterpiece when it ended. Indeed, I was just about to ring for a Mint Julep or something else completely indigenous of the South when the credits started to roll. Bette Davis gave an incredible performance as Regina Giddens. She was superbly fiendish and at her best. There was a remarkably well put together cast that played wonderfully off of each other and the writing was delicious. This movie was immensely entertaining and as stated previously, I only wish I could have seen more. This was truly an enchanting piece of work. By all means, put it on your list of things to do.

There is much to enjoy in this film. Most of the actors do a fine job, the story is certainly dramatic, and the direction is wonderful. William Wyler and Gregg Toland, director and cameraman, work very well together. One scene seems to be in all the film texts: it's the one with Dan Duryea and Carl Benton Reid shaving as they discuss how to steal Herbert Marshall's money. The deep focus composition allows the director to eliminate cutting back and forth between the men; this encourages the viewer to form his own opinions of the characters. Andre Bazin hailed this film as a breakthrough in the attempt to transfer a play into film.

A wonderful cinematic achievement, therefore, but not much fun to watch when we have morose Patricia Collinge and stricken (morally as well as cardiac-aly) Herbert Marshall emitting clouds of left-wing gas, regarding how treacherous their relatives are. I actually heard Richard Carlson say, to the lovely Teresa Wright, that the white folks may have all the money, but the black folks sure have the fine voices. I almost choked on the sandwich I was eating. This script has too much opining and whining, not enough really tough observation.

The best saved for last: Bette Davis cuts through all of Lillian Hellman's sentimental hokum with a beautifully vicious performance as Regina, with a great supporting turn from Charles Dingle as Ben, the one man who enjoys finagling others out of their money.

Unsympathetic, mercenary aristocrat in the post-Civil War South must rely on her husband for financial support (which she detests). Taking advantage of her spouse's sickly condition, she conspires behind his back with her two brothers to invest $75,000 of his money in the construction of a cotton mill, but her husband--physically weak yet sharp of mind--is onto her. Screen-adaptation of Lillian's Hellman's 1939 play (by Hellman, with some assist from Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell) has marvelous moments. These little foxes, who spoil the grape vines, are an amusingly contemptible lot, though Bette Davis' lead performance as Regina Hubbard Giddens was said not to be a shadow of Tallulah Bankhead's work on Broadway (in which Bankhead portrayed Regina as a victim of circumstance rather than as a ruthless matriarch). Still, in many ways, this could be the archetypal Davis performance: clipped, curt, dry yet fierce, her eyes seethe with anticipation. On the set, Davis and Wyler were at loggerheads over everything from her 'death mask' makeup to the art direction (and, indeed, the mansion in which these money-grubbing people reside is a tad opulent). Still, Wyler has made this wholly-theatrical material cinematic in surprising ways, and the Hubbard household becomes a memorably suffocating cocoon. Supporting work from Herbert Marshall and Teresa Wright is top-notch, though Wyler allows some of his other actors to get carried away, and the third act has too many peaks and valleys for the final summation to hold the great power expected. The movie-adaptation of Hellman's 1946 prequel, "Another Part of the Forest", was released in 1948. Nine Oscar nominations--including Davis as Best Actress, Wyler as Best Director, Hellman for Best Screenplay, both Wright and Patricia Collinge as Best Supporting Actress, and Best Picture--but with no wins. **1/2 from ****