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La fière créole

Original title: The Foxes of Harrow
  • 1947
  • Approved
  • 1h 57m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
605
YOUR RATING
La fière créole (1947)
ActionDramaRomance

In pre-Civil War New Orleans, Louisiana, roguish Irish gambler Stephen Fox (Sir Rex Harrison) buys his way into society, something he couldn't do in his homeland because he is illegitimate.In pre-Civil War New Orleans, Louisiana, roguish Irish gambler Stephen Fox (Sir Rex Harrison) buys his way into society, something he couldn't do in his homeland because he is illegitimate.In pre-Civil War New Orleans, Louisiana, roguish Irish gambler Stephen Fox (Sir Rex Harrison) buys his way into society, something he couldn't do in his homeland because he is illegitimate.

  • Director
    • John M. Stahl
  • Writers
    • Frank Yerby
    • Wanda Tuchock
    • Thomas Job
  • Stars
    • Rex Harrison
    • Maureen O'Hara
    • Richard Haydn
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.5/10
    605
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • John M. Stahl
    • Writers
      • Frank Yerby
      • Wanda Tuchock
      • Thomas Job
    • Stars
      • Rex Harrison
      • Maureen O'Hara
      • Richard Haydn
    • 15User reviews
    • 4Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 1 win & 1 nomination total

    Photos10

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    Top cast91

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    Rex Harrison
    Rex Harrison
    • Stephen Fox
    Maureen O'Hara
    Maureen O'Hara
    • Odalie 'Lilli' D'Arceneaux
    Richard Haydn
    Richard Haydn
    • Andre LeBlanc
    Victor McLaglen
    Victor McLaglen
    • Capt. Mike Farrell
    Vanessa Brown
    Vanessa Brown
    • Aurore D'Arceneaux
    Patricia Medina
    Patricia Medina
    • Desiree
    Gene Lockhart
    Gene Lockhart
    • Viscount Henri D'Arceneaux
    Charles Irwin
    Charles Irwin
    • Sean Fox
    Hugo Haas
    Hugo Haas
    • Otto Ludenbach
    Dennis Hoey
    Dennis Hoey
    • Master of Harrow
    Roy Roberts
    Roy Roberts
    • Tom Warren
    Dorothy Adams
    Dorothy Adams
    • Mrs. Sara Fox
    • (uncredited)
    Demetrius Alexis
    • Undetermined Secondary Role
    • (uncredited)
    Louis Bacigalupi
    • Crew Member
    • (uncredited)
    John Bagni
    • Crew Member
    • (uncredited)
    William Bailey
    William Bailey
    • Club Member
    • (uncredited)
    Carlos Barbe
    • Undetermined Secondary Role
    • (uncredited)
    Rene Beard
    • Little Inch - at 6
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • John M. Stahl
    • Writers
      • Frank Yerby
      • Wanda Tuchock
      • Thomas Job
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews15

    6.5605
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    Featured reviews

    7bkoganbing

    Harrow ain't Tara

    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.
    6ksf-2

    plantation owner in New Orleans

    Some interesting things going on in this one... Rex Harrison in his early days. William Schallert's first film... he probably still holds the record for the most film and TV series appearances (even more than Charles Lane!). Rex Harrison is "Fox", who started life with a couple strikes against him already. A gambler, he's pretty rough around the edges, but Fox tries to make it up to his wife. Co-stars Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglan, Gene Lockhart. It's a period piece, so there's strike one for me. and it's in New Orleans, so there's voodoo afoot. A lot going on, but its fairly entertaining. When they get involved in the lives of the slaves, things really get complicated. Trials, tribulations. Lessons learned. Writer Frank Yerby wrote over 30 novels, but it looks like not very many were made into film. and THIS one must not be shown on Turner Classic very often, only 290 votes so far. Shown on a double feature with Tomango on TCM.
    6HotToastyRag

    Huge melodrama

    If you've heard The Foxes of Harrow being compared to Gone With the Wind, it's probably because the novels have a similar setting. The movies really aren't alike. I've since looked up a synopsis of the novel, and it's quite different from the 1947 drama. So, in case you don't like the movie, you might still be interested in checking out the scandalous novel, which spans more time and goes through the Civil War.

    In the movie, Rex Harrison plays an illegitimate Irish rogue who makes his way to America by gambling and sometimes cheating. He doesn't care about being a scoundrel, because he always lands on his feet and he climbs his way back to the top. He gets an influential friend, Richard Hayden, in the crème of New Orleans society, and quickly he amasses a fortune and becomes a legitimate suitor to Maureen O'Hara, a fiery debutante. She should know exactly what she's getting into, because she's seen his roguish ways first-hand, but after she marries him, she seems shocked and disgusted by his character. They have a child, but because his housekeeper threw away some good-luck voodoo dolls made by one of their slaves (remember this is pre-Civil War times), their house gets a curse on it and things go from bad to worse.

    I'm neither a Rex Harrison nor a Maureen O'Hara fan, so I wasn't the best target audience for this movie. I appreciated the intense melodrama of the story, and part of me is tempted to read the book, but since I find Rex unlikable anyway, I couldn't really get behind the story. He's unlikable enough even when you're supposed to root for him, let alone when he's a scoundrel!
    9vitaleralphlouis

    Excellent and Engrossing Historic Drama

    Forget Frank Yerby's novel and take this fine movie on its own terms and you'll find Rex Harrison -- a great actor from my father's era -- as Fox; an orphan boy from Ireland who makes his own fortune in America in the 1810's. Winning a plantation in a lucky game of cards, from a sore loser who also forfeits his life, Fox sets out to establish a new Harrow, one with a benevolent attitude to the slave workers, and to pursue and marry Maureen O'Hara --- where the trouble begins.

    The story will involve the Panic of 1821 and other matters which make for a great story whose description ought to end right here.

    In the South (as well as in most northern states; particularly New York and New Jersey) they had slaves working on plantations and elsewhere in the 1810-1821 era. Slavery has set current day Hollywood into a tizzy and state of confusion, thus films of historic accuracy made by a pre- Political Correctness film industry are not only misjudged but are under suppression. Thus Foxes of Harrow and virtually any other film portraying slaves (except revisionist history like Steven Spielberg's foolish and unsuccessful Amisted) are no longer available for public view. Foxes of Harrow has never been released in video.
    5Doylenf

    Hollow historical romance buried in pop culture clichés...

    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.

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The movie was based on Frank Yerby's bestseller, his first book. It was not widely known at the time that Yerby was African-American. His many books about "the old South" painted a more accurate picture than that of "Gone with the Wind". Nevertheless, Twentieth Century Fox was hoping for its own GWTW success and paid Yerby one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the rights, an astronomical figure. Yerby went on to write thirty-three books of historical fiction.
    • Quotes

      Stephen Fox: [after nodding to a passing coach] That's the second time I've comprised you. Once more and your father would probably force me to marry you.

      Odalie 'Lilli' D'Arceneaux: Me to Marry you? Why you're the most insufferable, insulting - !

      Stephen Fox: Stop being so angry with yourself. Face up to it. All your pretty notions are going astray and you have little left to use against me except I'm no gentleman and you're wrong there too. Because I'm from as fine a flock of sheep that's ever grazed in Ireland. But I had the luck to be the odd one. And it carried me out into a good world, full of living. And it will carry me out wherever I want it to - even to you.

      [kisses her]

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • July 28, 1948 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
    • Also known as
      • The Foxes of Harrow
    • Filming locations
      • Maspero's Restaurant, French Qtr., New Orleans, LA, USA(filming of duel)
    • Production company
      • Twentieth Century Fox
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 57m(117 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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