Maby it's one of those movies that you have to se many times until you like it...but i think you didin't see much of Bette. i don't undersatnd how she can have the lead role. it seems to me that the movie was about the daughter
share[deleted]
You are probibly right it may take more than one viewing to appreciate it. Bette is absolutely rivating in the role, a much more subdued performance than some of her others. and when she is on screen she completely steels the scenes. The death scene in particular! She sitting on the sofa while Horace is struggling up the stairs. She doesn't have to say a word! Powerful stuff!!
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." "Now Voyager"
Me either. It's my least favorite of Bette's films. I can appreciate the acting but didn't care for the screenplay.
shareSo anthropo,am I to believe you liked Fog Over Frisco and Wicked Stepmother better?
It's a dirty job,but I pay clean money for it.
Didn't see them. My post should have read it's the least favorite of her films that I've seen. I've seen about 10.
shareFair enough. lol
It's a dirty job,but I pay clean money for it.
Funny that people say this is their least favorite Davis film. It makes me wonder what criteria they are using. I've always thought this was her finest film performance, hands down, due largely to the restraining influence of the director, William Wyler. He got her to tone down the theatrical mannerisms and give a reading shot through with nuance and subtlety. I've never seen her better.
shareWhile this is not my favorite Bette Davis film, it ranks as one of my top ten films of hers. Davis was wretchedly evil throughout in an understated way. The only thing is I would like to have seen her pay for crimes at the end....but I guess she did, subtly. The staircase scene with her and Teresa Wright where she asks Teresa if she would like to spend the night in the bedroom with her and Teresa, knowing full well the Bette is responsible for Herbert Marshall's death, asks, "What's the matter? Are you afraid?" That makes me think that her part in the death was going to be exposed sooner or later.
share""What's the matter? Are you afraid?" That makes me think that her part in the death was going to be exposed sooner or later."
Everyone involved already knew Regina was responsible for Horace's death. Alexandra first then Ben asked what was a man in a wheelchair doing on the stairs. Alexandra was just twisting the knife when she asked those questions on the stairs. Regina was afraid. She was afraid of having to sleep alone in the room next to Horace's corpse. Being left scared and alone was the production code's way of saying Regina did in fact pay for her crime. There was no David in the play and Alexandra left Regina to all her millions with no retribution.
"They love me....the men love me, the women love me...... ME, MAHOGANY!"
I love Bette in almost everything she's done! And her Regina only rivals her Margo Channing in "All About Eve" as my favorite Bette role. She's so wicked she's and unabashedly greedy that you just have to love her. And her performance has never been better.
shareI couldn't stand it.
So shoot me.
Maybe we are not supposed to like it....
Read My Lips!!!!
Well, I think you are at least supposed to be intrigued and fascinated.
I wasn't, though. I found this film really boring.
there's something to be said for watching a movie in which just about everyone is evil or unappealing, but you want something -- dialogue, performances, that intrigue or fascinate.
I didn't get that here.
Oh, well. Chacun a son gout.
I just don't understand how anyone could fail to find this fascinating. Sure, the dialogue may not have the snappiness of "Eve", but it's well-written and, throughout most of the film, thoroughly vicious. I especially love the way Ben toys with Regina...all three siblings may be greedy, but Ben has that special understanding of Regina's nature and lets her know, as much as she tries to play dumb. Oscar has much more of a straightforward, "bull in a china shop" aura...he's not as clever. Ben menaces Regina with a smile on his face and sometimes that's far more frightening.
Meanwhile, Bette's performance here never fails to thrill me. The beauty is, most of her greatest moments are the ones in which she says nothing at all...the glowering looks she shoots at the men while Xan and Birdie are playing the piano -- she may not be speaking up when it comes to her brothers' uninspired hints towards their business deal but we see that she's clearly in charge...the way she inspects herself in the mirror and compares her present self to an old picture, we see the disappointment in he face as well as the coldness...her expression of terrified anticipation when Horace is struggling to get to his medicine, is she trying to restrain herself or merely praying for the inevitable to happen before he's discovered?...It's just incredible.
Agreed--truly one of her best. The looks and the understated performances are stunning. I saw this again tonight and remembered when I first saw it 20 years ago; it holds up so well and would be interesting to see an updated version for this generation. Can anyone think of a movie that thrives on such greed and deception in a family? Just wondering...
I admit, I only liked it the second time through. It was more understated than I'd expected, and it might be one of those films that grows on you. Or that you just have to be in the right mood for. I still think it was great.
shareI agree. I think it's a highly-overrated film, a 7 at best.
My complaints are:
(1) Not enough work went into ensuring this was a film, rather than a filmed play
(2) The brothers are cardboard and interchangeable.
(3) It wasn't surprising to learn that David was invented for the film. It shows.
(4) Nobody as stupid as Leo would be put in charge of other people's money for long enough to do the damage that he did no matter who he was related to.
(5) The quote forming the basis for this film isn't particularly clear. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." What does that even mean? "Take us the foxes"? Who has the foxes? Why do we want them? The words may be English, but the sentence is not. And I like foxes anyway. I have nothing they want.
(6) I'm just not interested in this kind of villain (Regina). Boring.
(7) It shouldn't take me half the film to learn that Birdie is not Regina's mother or an addled boarder of some sort, but a haggard sister-in-law. That didn't add to the film. It just made it more confusing. Not in an "aha!" way either.
(8) The accents and sound quality made it difficult to understand what was being said. Fortunately we have captions and rewind today. Pity the audiences before PVRs.
Still, of the several other films I've seen from 1941, I only like The Maltese Falcon better. I guess what I'm saying is 1941 was not a good year for film. Time is better spent watching today's films in this case.
6/10
(2) The brothers are cardboard and interchangeable.
(5) The quote forming the basis for this film isn't particularly clear. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." What does that even mean? "Take us the foxes"? Who has the foxes? Why do we want them? The words may be English, but the sentence is not. And I like foxes anyway. I have nothing they want.
6) I'm just not interested in this kind of villain (Regina). Boring.
(7) It shouldn't take me half the film to learn that Birdie is not Regina's mother or an addled boarder of some sort, but a haggard sister-in-law. That didn't add to the film. It just made it more confusing. Not in an "aha!" way either.
(8) The accents and sound quality made it difficult to understand what was being said.
Absolutely agree.
Unless you're watching with the sound muted and the captions off, it's clear who Birdie is. Even if you miss the traditional familial breakfast five minutes in (father, mother, son sitting down together), ten minutes later Ben refers to her as "our (his and Regina's) brother's wife". Minutes later Oscar refers to her piano playing by referring to "my wife's" training. This is all in the first 20 minutes.
"Boring" is of course in the eye of the beholder, but again, giving an ear to the dialogue shows us so much of Regina's mental acuity, power over a room, quick calculating and pivoting in response to a rapidly-changing situation, all within the constraints of "proper" southern feminine behavior - she's marvelous. I can't imagine not being intrigued.
With the comment about the brothers being indistinguishable - I'm wondering if rgcustomer isn't keen on dialogue-centric films. This one is all about what people are saying to each other and how. If you subtract all that, I'd find the movie and Regina pretty dull too, and the wordless brothers fairly similar.
_______________
Nothing to see here, move along.
rgcustomer
Just on the little foxes quote, it is from the King James Bible
"Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes."
I kind of agree with you, that it is difficult to see the point of this. It is poetic, but the "Take us the foxes" phrase is hard to understand.
I also have an older translation, and that one gives the quote in this way
"Catch the little foxes which spoil the vines, for our vines are fruitful."
I don't know which is the more accurate translation, but the second one makes clear that the "foxes" are destroying God's bounty and should be caught and stopped.
The metaphor is direct for this play, with the destructive Hubbards exploiting their neighbors and the poor,
and also the secondary theme which boils down to evil people like the Hubbards flourish because good folks don't fight to stop them.
You cracked me up with this, rgc:
The quote forming the basis for this film isn't particularly clear. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." What does that even mean? "Take us the foxes"? Who has the foxes? Why do we want them? The words may be English, but the sentence is not. And I like foxes anyway. I have nothing they want.
My favourite Bette film and performance. Maybe surpassed by Eve, depending on my mood.
As for Regina, even if she's never exposed for contributing to Horace's death, she's still paying. Can you imagine living the rest of your life knowing a man like Ben Hubbard is looking for the first opportunity to stab you in the back?
I loved it. One of my favorite Bette Davis movies. But those of you who hated it had good company. Bette Davis hated it as well. It apparently ended her relationship with Wyler. Bette objected to the costumes, which were apparently not entirely right for the period and the financial and geographic circumstances of the family. And she hated that Wyler insisted on directing her in a way that reminded her [and everyone else] of Talulah Bankhead's performance of the role on Broadway. She was miserable for the entire shooting schedule and wouldn't even talk about the movie for many years. Later, she revisited the movie and said that she still didn't like it but it wasn't QUITE as bad as she had remembered it.
I thought it was a fine movie, well directed by William Wyler and containing superb performances. My only regret is that I found it too studio-bound. I know its a theatrical piece and also that in 1941 it was a very rare film that went on location, but I just felt the film would have been enchanced and more grounded in realism if they had actually filmed it in the south. You were always aware that it was done in a studio and conscious of the sets. No matter how well done it was, there was no escaping the artificiality.
shareI just saw this a year too late, maybe, but folks, the title comes from the Bible:
The Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes."
"We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did."
The one point I do agree with Bette on: the sets were too grand. Bette argued quite sensibly that it was important to show that Regina's stature was slipping, economically and socially. (She says flat-out she married Horace for his prospects, and he didn't deliver.) She said no viewer would look at that house and understand why Regina was willing to go so far to get the money.
Apparently on Broadway Regina lived in a home that showed a faded elegance, indicating past wealth, rather than present.
I read that in one of her bios after I'd seen the movie. Watching that first time, it didn't strike me that she was needy, just greedy. Didn't bother me at all. Some people just can't have enough.
After I read that, though, I realized it would have lent an extra urgency and a hint of fear to her motivations. More nuance is never a bad thing!
"Regina's stature was slipping"
"She married Horace for his prospects, but he didn't deliver"
"the sets are too grand"
I can't agree that the sets are too grand. Regina is a very wealthy, privileged woman, hardly in any economic distress. Horace is actually more wealthy than her brothers, I think. The play makes that clear. He has $90,000 of Union Pacific bonds in his safety deposit box. This play is set in 1900, so I looked up the modern value of those bonds if adjusted for inflation. It comes to close to 2.6 million dollars. And that is merely a liquid asset he can lay his hands on in minutes.
The fact is Horace has given her a very comfortable life, and off the original play, he was none too scrupulous about his business methods. He mentions in separate speeches that he has had time to think about his life and he now doesn't want to go into the mill deal because he doesn't want to bring more destruction and exploitation into his community than he already has.
I have to watch the movie again today to judge again the changes from the play. My memory is that Horace is all but saintly in the movie. In the play he is a dying man who when facing death regrets how he has lived.
Davis said the Broadway sets reflected a fading prosperity. That was fine with Horace; he didn't prioritize spending the money in the present, but saving it for his daughter. That didn't fly with Regina, who cared about appearances over all. For her that meant the newest everything.
The bonds were only Horace's. They didn't belong to the couple. If she could get her hands on them, she would have - and the furniture would be new, the curtains the most fashionable. But she had to make do with his small-town, small-scale success - one of the reasons she despised Horace.
I'm happy to take Davis' word on that. ;)
"Davis said the Broadway sets reflected a fading prosperity."
Okay, but the play says Horace has $90,000 in liquid assets which he keeps in his safety deposit box. That is what the play says.
The play is set in 1900. I looked up the average yearly income of Americans in 1900.
Average yearly income of all salaried Americans---$438
State and Local Government workers---$590
Public school teacher---$328
Medical/health services worker---$256
Even in 1940, that $90,000 would look immense to an average American
Average yearly salary in 1940---$1315
"I'm happy to take Davis' word for that"
Well, it is possible that Goldwyn and Wyler had a better understanding of how an average American would take a "fading prosperity" point of view.
Regina is a woman who has never worked a day in her life, who has a bevy of servants to keep her house and attend to her every need. The play says that isn't enough for her. She wants not only to be part of the Southern aristocracy but also the extreme gilded age aristocracy.
"one of the reasons she despised Horace."
Along with his being "kind and understanding" which she found contemptible and told him so to his face.
The movie is certainly fascinating to watch and I watch it again and again. I have purchased also the 1956 TV version with Greer Garson as Regina, Franchot Tone as Horace, Sydney Blackmer as Ben, E G Marshall as Oscar, and Eileen Heckert as Birdie. I assume the 1956 version is closer to the original play. There are differences, and the differences favor the 1956 version.
1--The Alexandra subplot is much more conventional in the 1941 movie. In the 1956 version Addie is much more obviously a surrogate mother. Horace explicitly tells Addie that she is going to leave Alexandra most of his estate and that he expects her to help Alexandra stand up to Regina and go out on her own. The end leaves it in doubt how much money Alexandra will have, but she is clearly leaving with Addie. With no man involved, Alexandra seems a stronger character, willing to stand on her own feet.
2--David is not in the 1956 version at all. My take is that Richard Carlson was appealing and competent as David and plays the part as written well. He has good scenes standing up to Regina and slapping around Leo. The cute romantic scenes with Alexandra certainly lighten the mood at times. How one reacts is probably personal. The 1956 version is like a train gathering speed down the tracks, heading for the climax. The romantic subplot in 1941 slows the plotting down. The main issue with David is how much more conventional his presence makes the movie. Alexandra is not independently going off at the end. She is "eloping" with a young man.
3--The black characters are reduced. Addie is no longer the surrogate for Regina at the end. Her comments on the Hubbards' greed remain, though. The scene when Horace talks to Cal about the box is much different. In the 1941 version Cal simply has difficulty remembering a two sentence instruction. In 1956 his objection is that he would be telling the bank manager something the bank manager already knows--that Horace has the box as Cal has seen him hand the box to Horace. I don't know which version better reflects the 1939 play.
4--In the 1956 version Tone plays Horace in a surly fashion and the dialogue makes clear that facing death Horace has been thinking about how he has run his business and doesn't want to be part of any more exploitation. In 1941 Horace, along with his ghastly "death is near" looks at the camera, seems almost a saint, which does make Regina appear even worse.
5--The first act is much weaker in the 1941 movie, with slow intros of the characters not adding much. In the 1956 version Marshall goes on to Regina about how he is alone with his wife spending most of her time traveling. Regina later learns from Birdie that Marshall told Birdie how attractive he thought Regina was. It is obvious that a potential affair with Marshall has entered Regina's mind.
6--Despite the original stage cast being used in 1941, I thought the brothers were better played and defined by the actors in 1956. Dingle had a "blowhard" quality as Ben, while Blackmer came across as quietly shrewd. Marshall and Heckert were also outstanding. While the three supporting roles were well-played in 1941, my reaction is that the three actors in 1956 were better.
7--What about Davis and Garson as Regina? Well, Garson had the advantage of being the right age and not using extensive makeup as far as I could see. My reaction is that Regina in 1941 seems closer to Oscar, smarter than Oscar, but rather obviously mean. The makeup was close to over-the-top for me. I was sometimes reminded of Countess Dracula. Regina in 1956 seemed more like the shrewd Ben, charming and gracious until crossed. Garson seemed better at playing charming, which made the later "evil" scenes more effective. Garson's hissing of the lines "I hope you die. I hope you die soon." reflected an underlying evil even beyond Davis' reading in my opinion.
Bottom line--a great effort in 1941, but somewhat constricted I think by the code and the conventions of the time. The 1956 effort was totally a filmed stageplay but outstanding, and I sure wish the 1967 and 1982 stage plays with Anne Bancroft and Elizabeth Taylor had been committed to film so we could judge how they compare.