La fière créole

"The Foxes of Harrow," released in 1947, like a lot of Fox movies, is reminiscent of classics made at other studios. Fox was very reactive: when San Francisco was a hit, Fox followed with In Old Chicago; It Happened One Night - Fox does Love is News; and here we have Fox's low-budget answer to Gone with the Wind, The Foxes of Harrow. Based on the novel by Frank Yerby, it is purported to be the first novel by a black author purchased for films. Given that Fox paid $150,000 for it, I suspect the intention was to do the film in color, especially with Maureen O'Hara in it - I mean, what a waste in black and white. What happened, I don't know.

I don't have any doubt that this film was intended for Tyrone Power (and this may be why the budget was cut) - I mean, come on, Irish roots, Maureen O'Hara, period costumes, swordplay - it has his name all over it. He was busy in 1947 during this time, having gone from Captain from Castile into Nightmare Alley, so Rex Harrison plays the role of Stephen Fox, who was taken from his wealthy family when he was born illegitimate. In the 1800s, he becomes a successful gambler and eventually wins a Louisiana plantation from a compulsive gambler, though Fox turns around and purchases the property from the man's widow. He builds Harrow, intent on creating a new dynasty with the woman of his dreams, the beautiful Odalie 'Lilli' D'Arceneaux (O'Hara), the feisty daughter of a friend (Gene Lockhart).

Odalie finds him disgusting and wants nothing to do with him, but her father points out that the line between love and hate is a thin one. Once she confronts her feelings, the two marry. After a fight on their wedding night, during which she locks him out of her room, he knocks the door down. You can guess the rest. She never has anything to do with him again, though a child is born as a result of that night. The story continues from there, as Fox obsesses on his son and later becomes involved in the bank crash of 1821.

Slavery, voo-doo, prostitution, and kissing in front of a double bed (the Hayes office must have loved that one) are all part of "The Foxes of Harrow," and the film is fairly well done. It's a funny thing about miscasting - with a good enough actor, sometimes it works out. This isn't a usual role for Rex Harrison, but brilliant actor that he was, he pulls it off. He's quite dashing and powerful here. Maureen O'Hara is gorgeous, with magnificent costumes. Though she has a gentle, lilting voice, she does feisty well, and here she plays a rather cold woman who softens toward her son.

The big problem is that there are no sparks between Harrison and O'Hara. The chemistry just isn't there. Nevertheless, this is a good, entertaining film. Sigh. I just kept picturing Tyrone's flashing eyes, and talk about chemistry with Maureen O'Hara - oh, well, the best laid plans.

I have been reviewing the films of John M. Stahl recently -- not an easy task as their availability is quite limited -- and they are a very mixed bag. From the gripping melodrama of "Back Street" (probably his best film), to the original versions of "Magnificent Obsession" and "Imitation of Life," both very different from and as interesting in their own ways as Sirk's remakes, and "Only Yesterday," to the excellent period comedy "Holy Matrimony" and the comedy/drama "Letter of Introduction," when Stahl is engaged with his material he is unique and interesting. All these films have a tone of serenity and patience which is not in the least boring. (It's there, too, in the unique noir/Technicolor melodrama, "Leave Her to Heaven," Stahl's uncannily brilliant success -- a great picture that uses color in a highly controlled and most original way). When he is less involved-- both here and in "Parnell," for two examples, the serenity disappears, yet without a compensatory excitement. Both of these films have a strange, disengaged quality. Stahl seems less than comfortable with the grand gesture -- certainly the political scenes of "Parnell" are remarkably lifeless, and the sweeping quality of a "Gone with the Wind" -- to which it bears some narrative resemblance -- is largely missing from "The Foxes of Harrow." It starts off well, and Rex Harrison is dynamic and exciting in the first hour, as he courts the ever-reluctant Maureen O'Hara. This courtship goes through very rough waters (her resistance is iron), but ultimately -- and in a beautifully played scene --Rex clearly has genuine tears in his eyes -- he does win her over. Then the trouble starts all over again, for, no sooner has she overcome her scruples than she gets them back again -- understandably as Fox (Harrison) drunkenly rapes her on their wedding night! The relationship is not unlike that between Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker in "Home from the Hill," but nowhere near as interesting. Rex's panache, unfortunately, disappears with the leaden problem-filled second half, and there is little that is really engaging after that. (We can be grateful, I think, that Stahl was removed -- after several weeks of shooting, apparently -- from "Forever Amber," which no doubt would have arrived equally stillborn had not the great Otto taken over and made it into a really exciting picture.) O'Hara, fine actress though she is, often got stuck in these reluctant maiden parts -- she fares only a little better in Borzage's "The Spanish Main" or Nick Ray's "A Woman's Secret." Thank God she got to work for John Ford, for whom she is always delightful, nowhere more so than in "Rio Grande," where -- again! -- she is playing an estranged wife with scruples. I guess scruples were Maureen's main hindrance! To sum up: there's not much magic in this one, despite a promising start.

Critics suggested that Frank Yerby must have fashioned his THE FOXES OF HARROW on the sort of epic best-sellers enormously popular when GONE WITH THE WIND and ANTHONY ADVERSE were taking the public by storm. But Fox apparently had less faith in this turgid screenplay and gave it a more modest B&W budget, apparently investing all their time in producing FOREVER AMBER in lavish Technicolor.

It was a wise decision not to spend too much on this supposed blockbuster of a movie. It's amusing to note that when it opened in New York at the Roxy theater and was mercilessly panned by Bosley Crowther for being adrift in a sea of clichés, MILTON BERLE was the featured attraction of the stage show that accompanied the film.

REX HARRISON is the strong-willed tyrant who breaks up his marriage in order to win fame and wealth in New Orleans of 1820. The lumbering script is as dull as his character. MAUREEN O'HARA plays her usual feisty heroine, "proud and beautiful" as described by RICHARD HAYDYN, the type of cardboard beauty seen on the covers of risqué bodice rippers. She's a frozen delight in the role.

The long and very uninvolving story has them bickering like a less colorful gambler and scoundrel playing Rhett to Maureen's bold Scarlett, with none of the necessary plot ingredients necessary to make this more than a stale and very tall tale full of dull dialog and long stretches of boredom.

Trivia note: If you look carefully, some of the interior sets look like holdovers from FOREVER AMBER.

In her memoirs of a few years earlier Maureen O'Hara declared her lack of fondness for Rex Harrison and learning what was obvious to anyone who would watch The Foxes Of Harrow can see, that this was a film designed with Tyrone Power in mind. As O'Hara had already worked with Power on The Black Swan and found him a delight to work with, I'm sure she signed on to The Foxes Of Harrow with him in mind.

Harrison who had come over to this side of the pond on the strength of what he did in Blithe Spirit to a Fox contract did not make himself popular in Hollywood especially among the women. When Carole Landis committed suicide his career at that point toasted. She too was a 20th Century Fox contract player and word got around about way before she did the deed.

In some ways the antagonism between them personally probably helped the tone of The Foxes Of Harrow. Harrison is a notorious gambler/adventurer who was of illegitimate birth and given a chance in the western hemisphere was going to establish his own name. O'Hara and sister Vanessa Brown are a pair of high bred Creole princesses and the daughters of Gene Lockhart, a mover and shaker in New Orleans society.

Harrison's gambling skills win him a big plantation at the expense of Hugo Haas whom he then has to kill in a duel. It also wins him Maureen who leaves her home in New Orleans. But there's is a tempestuous relationship very much like Scarlett and Rhett.

There are a lot of similarities between Gone With The Wind that I won't go into, but one big difference. Harrison due to his upbringing or lack thereof identifies a lot with the slaves he's also inherited. He's a sugar cane planter as a lot on the Mississippi river were. You'll find him working along side his slaves to insure his crop's successs. Not something you would see among the gentry gathered at the Wilkes plantation of Seven Oaks.

The African slave trade was abolished in 1806, but that still didn't mean that it wasn't practiced illegally. Harrison is in the market as well and he buys Suzette Harbin for the head of his slaves. She hasn't learned the slave etiquette and never does. Her death scene which also involves Harrison is unforgettable and daring beyond belief for a major Hollywood studio to portray at the time.

Victor McLaglen has too small a role as the leader of a gang of river cutthroats who saves Harrison's life. I got the feeling his part in the original novel was bigger, I wish we had more of him. This is also the only movie where the Panic of 1837 plays a role, something akin to the Civil War in Gone With The Wind.

Harrison's estate of Harrow isn't the same as Tara and the films look the same, but have a different point of view. The Foxes Of Harrow did get an Oscar nomination for Black&white art&set decoration. It holds up very well for today.

This is a Cliff's Notes version of a heavily plotted historical novel dealing with Stephen Fox's rise and fall in New Orleans plantation society during the 1820's-1830's. Film has plot points similar to GWTW and "Anthony Adverse." Fox is Yerby's version of Rhett Butler; Odalie, his version of Scarlett. Rex Harrison is sadly miscast as Fox; Maureen O'Hara is waxy and cold as Odalie. Treatment of black characters is the most condescending I've seen in a film from this era (1947). Received top notch production values; should have been in color. But '47 was the year Fox made "Forever Amber" and its color went into that historical romance.