Review of The Little Foxes (1941) by Ben L — 08 Nov 2016

While I was watching the first 30 minutes of The Little Foxes I would have struggled to explain who the characters are or what they are doing. There's a lot of confusing discussion before I was on board with the story.

Essentially this film is about a family that owns a large amount of cotton fields in the South, and they are trying to get a Chicago businessman to build a factory on their land to process the cotton.

What we discover as this unfolds is that most of the members of this family will do almost anything to make it happen and to ensure that they get the biggest cut of the profits from the new factory. The Little Foxes is definitely a film loaded with antagonists, and they seem to often be in the power positions of the story, so for viewers (like me) who enjoy having someone to root for it might be a struggle.

The acting performances were top-notch, in particular I loved the interactions between Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall. The film is loaded with clever camera work that frames the scenes perfectly, and maintains a deep focus so we can appreciate what is happening in the background.

Despite the fact that the images were captured so well, the way the scenes are staged and the design of the sets felt like they came straight from a theater show instead of a film. The dialogue also felt relatively untouched from the original stage-play.

There's nothing inherently bad about The Little Foxes, particularly once you know who is who and what is going on, in fact I think many aspects were done well. Yet it didn't resonate fully for me, and I can't see myself watching it again.